Portugal’s foreign minister emphasizes commitment to ‘stability’ in Europe
Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Portas, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the European Union (EU) and its economic and fiscal policies in a talk at MIT on Tuesday, saying Portugal was “interested in stability in the Euro Zone.”Portas sought to distance the situation in Portugal from that in Greece, where growing protests over the country’s austerity measures, imposed in part as a condition of financial assistance from European institutions, has led to intensified discussion in recent weeks about the possibility of Greece leaving the Euro. Observers have speculated such a move could trigger similar moves in other southern European countries. Portugal is one of three European countries, after Greece and Ireland, to receive bailout funds from the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) — in Portugal’s case, 78 billion Euros — on the condition of certain austerity measures. But compared to Greece, “Portugal has a different attitude,” Portas told...