Country could need as much as $99 billion to relieve debt crisis
European officials say Portugal may need a bailout worth as much as $99 billion to relieve its debt crisis. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates offered to step down this week after his government’s package of austerity measures was rejected by the country’s parliament. Socrates’s resignation in light of Portuguese lawmakers’ unwillingness to pass the reforms is believed to have inched the country closer to needing external help. “It’s pretty inevitable” that Portugal will need a financial lifeline, said Jacques Cailloux, a London-based economist at RBS. “The market will deteriorate in the absence of other measures going through. There is obviously the risk of further downgrades, which will become anticipated by the markets and be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”