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The summit began a day after Portugal’s government collapsed. It was an inau-spicious time for the country’s prime minister, José Sócrates, to attempt to convince other EU leaders – let alone the markets – that Portugal would not need an international bail-out.

In the event, the EU opted for a ‘wait-and-see’ approach. Leaders refused to contemplate any kind of rescue package, at least for now, and instead continued to urge Portuguese politicians to back the government’s austerity pledges.

At a time of belt-tightening across the EU, there is not much stomach in national capitals for Portugal to follow Greece and Ireland in tapping the financial rescue fund. Many leaders have their eyes on domestic polls – witness the heavy defeats suffered by governing parties in France and Germany in local elections. Further loans to more profligate countries would not help their plight.

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So instead, all the talk was of convincing the Portuguese to continue to take the medicine. But that no longer means convincing just Sócrates’ government, but any likely election winner too. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said Portugal’s opposition parties “have to make clear” that they share the goal of introducing tougher austerity measures to reduce the country’s budget deficit and debt.

Sócrates, who resigned as the country’s prime minister on Wednesday (23 March) after all five of Portugal’s opposition parties rejected the austerity package, warned that the eurozone’s stability was at risk. “If Portugal were to fail, that would then expose other countries to risk,” he said at the summit’s conclusion. “There would be a domino effect.”

Consensus

Passos Coelho, the leader of Portugal’s opposition Social Democrats and the man widely tipped to become the country’s next prime minister, turned up in Brussels too. Speaking at a pre-summit meeting of the EU’s centre-right heads of government, Coelho shared his rival’s refusal to entertain the need for external financing.

Sócrates won praise for his austerity plans from fellow eurozone leaders when they last met in Brussels, on 11 March. Opposition parties do not contest the fiscal targets but the way of achieving them.

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission and a former Portuguese prime minister, insisted on Thursday that the issue of a bail-out had not come up for discussion. An election is not expected until the end of April at the earliest. The markets are nervous. This is not the end of the story.