Spain has quietly lodged an official request with the United Nations to have Portugal’s southern-most territory, the Savage Islands, declared as rocks and not as islands, according to a report from the Gibraltar Chronicle.
The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the country's foreign minister said.
Spain and Portugal sought help from their former Latin American colonies to rescue them from economic crisis through a new wave of trade and investment across the Atlantic Ocean.
Portugal’s auction of state-owned airline TAP SA has been shunned by Europe’s three biggest carriers, boosting prospects for a Latin American takeover of a company analysts say may fetch 500 million Euros.
Rating agency Fitch downgraded Portugal's rating to junk status, citing large fiscal imbalances, high debts and the risks to its EU-mandated austerity program from a worsening economic outlook.
The 'oligopolistic structure' of international credit rating agencies is probably undesirable, the head of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet said on Thursday.
European Commission strongly criticised international credit ratings agencies following the downgrade of Portugal by Moody's. The Commission said the timing of the downgrade was questionable and raised the issue of the appropriateness of behaviour of the agencies in general.
Euro zone finance ministers approved Monday a three-year, 78-billion Euro emergency loan program for Portugal and said Lisbon would ask private bondholders to maintain their exposure to its debt.
Portugal’s caretaker Prime Minister Jose Socrates announced Tuesday that he has reached agreement on a bail-out from the EU and the International Monetary Fund. He said the three-year loan was a good agreement that defends Portugal.
What’s the link between Portugal's bailout negotiations and Finland? Well negotiations began under a cloud Monday after an anti-Euro party scored big gains in a Finnish election and immediately vowed to derail the pending rescue.