A day after his parliament rejected the third round of budget cuts, PM Jose Socrates (pictured) has quit.
Now, Portugal may need as much as 70-80 billion euros... even as it continues to rule out a rescue.
Fitch added to the fiscal mess by lowering the nation's long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings to ‘A-’ from ‘A+’... and in its short-term issuer default ratings to ‘F2’ from ‘F1’.
Portugal soon faces its first bond maturities of 2011 with redemptions worth about 9 billion euros on April 15 and June 15.
Spain is now also under market pressure from speculators after Moody's today downgraded most of its banking sector.