Portugal: Grexit Scenario Only Bigger?

[thenews]

Portugal has entered a phase change, with potentially huge ramifications.

After handing a parliamentary majority to a coalition of leftist (i.e., anti-austerity, anti-euro, anti-NATO) parties, and then trying to prevent them forming a government, the country now looks likely to stand back and let it happen. Here’s an update from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

Portugal Government Ousted Amid Anger Over Austerity

LISBON—A leftist alliance in Portugal’s new parliament ousted the minority conservative government on Tuesday, raising pressure on the president to appoint a Socialist prime minister at odds with the eurozone’s prevailing policies of austerity.

The vote rejecting Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s governing program, 11 days into his second term, follows four years of sharp spending cuts and tax increases imposed to meet the demands of the country’s bailout lenders. While the economy is growing again, it shrank sharply between 2011 and 2013.

The parliamentary rebellion was the latest sign of how austerity has altered Europe’s political landscape during years of recession and painful recovery: It has increased the popularity of smaller parties that pledge to restore cuts in workers’ and pensioners’ income, challenging fiscal restraints set by the European Union’s executive arm.

Tuesday’s vote, 123 to 107 against Mr. Passos Coelho, brought an automatic end to his government. President Aníbal Cavaco Silva had asked him to remain in office after his center-right coalition finished first in the Oct. 4 parliamentary election but lost its majority to an array of leftist parties.

Although the president could reappoint him as a caretaker prime minister until new elections, the vote strengthened a bid by the Socialist Party to govern instead.

The mainstream Socialists are joined in opposition by the Left Bloc, the Communists and the Greens—three far-left parties that oppose Portugal’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and are willing to abandon Europe’s common currency.

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