Portugal's economic problems can be resolved without seeking help from the International Monetary Fund, Prime Minister Jose Socrates was quoted as saying on Saturday by the daily Diario de Noticias. "We don't have any problem that requires that we turn to the International Monetary Fund," Socrates told the paper.
Socrates, whose country many economists see as the next likely eurozone candidate to need a bailout after Greece and Ireland, said the crisis was part of a wider problem. "Our problem is just a budget problem that has to be corrected, as in other countries," Socrates said. "Whoever doesn't understand that what we are seeing is a systemic question, regarding the euro, hasn't understood anything about this crisis."
Portugal has adopted an austere 2011 budget - which includes tax rises and 5 percent civil servant wage cuts - aimed at cutting the budget deficit to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product from 7.3 percent this year. Socrates said the eurozone crisis is a "problem of all European countries", and urged joint action to resolve it. "If anybody thinks this is a problem of this or that country, they are not seeing how the sovereign debt crisis is affecting the euro," Socrates said.