Can the EU impose a Bail Out on Portugal?

Any individual believing in national sef-determination and democracy must answer NO to the question in this postings headline.

Anybody wishing for the continuation of the EU in its present form is compelled to answer YES!

That, in a nutshell, is why the EU has become a tyranny! The terms of the EFSF require that the government of a Euro Group country wishing for money from the EFSF requests the funding assistance. Rather than do that, the Government of Portugal resigned, and under its constitution a new government apparently cannot be voted in and formed in less than two months. The President has limited powers so it appears a likely outcome will be a default when funds due to foreign banks next fall due, or that outside governments (presumably the home countries of such foreign banks) make the payments on Portugals behalf to avoid default. This would be outside the EFSF and the IMF and would be an acceptance of default in all but name!

The following paragraphs from a report in the Sunday Telegraph this morning, linked here, seem to sum things up very neatly:

Nobody in the country wants the EU-IMF intervention, but it now seems certain to be imposed, just as with Ireland last year, to protect the euro – not to mention the economies of France and Germany– from the contagion of the financial crisis.

“Portugal doesn’t need any help,” Mr Sócrates pleaded with other European leaders at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

“I know what it would mean. I know what it meant for the Greeks and the Irish and I don’t want that for my country.”

Even the centre-Right opposition Social Democratic party that torpedoed the socialist government opposes the terms of a bailout, which is expected to bring even tighter austerity policies and lower living standards for years.

Popular anger at measures aimed at averting a bailout has sent Portugal into an economic tailspin.