Cantillon: Ireland neither Greece nor Portugal – yet

During the crisis, our leaders never tired of telling is that “Ireland is not Greece”. In the last couple of weeks of the general election campaign, voters are likely to hear how Ireland is not Portugal either, or at least it won’t be unless we lose the economic plot under a new government.

The new Socialist-led government in Portugal is under pressure from Brussels and, after its budget for 2016 was rejected, and it had to come up with new cutback plans. While it insists that these cuts will not be needed, the market has got windy.

The cost for Portugal of borrowing has been well above the euro zone average for some time, but rose sharply to more than 4 per cent this week, easing back slightly in later trading on Friday, With a third of Portugal’s €148 billion in debt coming up for redemption in the next three years, there is a looming danger of a debt squeeze.

But there is a greater danger, too. The euro zone government bond markets are being supported at the moment by massive buying by the European Central Bank under its quantitative easing programme. The ECB cannot buy bonds directly from member state governments, but is actively buying them on the secondary market as a way of pumping cash into the euro zone economy.

The problem for Portugal is that ECB rules require that the bonds it buys have an investment grade rating from one of four agencies. Portugal is holding on to its rating from just one of the four, the lesser-known Canadian agency, DBS. If it were to downgrade Portugal, the ECB would be out of the market and the country could face a full-scale debt crisis. The next review by the agency is due in late April.

Like most other euro zone economies – with the exception of Ireland – growth in Portugal is slow and this is adding to debt and deficit concerns.

Interesting, so, to see Minister for Finance Michael Noonan refer to Portugal’s woes in a statement yesterday. The political message was clear. If you don’t re-elect the Fine Gael/Labour government, this is what could be ahead of you.

Whether this resonates with the voters remains to be seen. But the underlying message is clear. High-debt countries still face a struggle to retain vital confidence of the market.