PORTUGAL: Scares EU With Higher Budget Deficit of 9.3%.

WSJ ONLINE/
The Euro hit its lowest level in 5 months after Portugal reported it would record a higher-than-expected budget deficit of 9.3% of GDP for 2009. The EU had projected it with an 8% budget deficit for 2009. Portugal has been given until 2013 to bring its deficit below the required 3% of GDP level.
Setting its 2010 budget, it said government wages would be frozen and payrolls reduced through attrition. It also planned to introduce a 50% tax on bonuses paid in 2010 to top executives in financial institutions and to resume privatizations of state assets.

Poland Delays 2012 Euro Adoption Target.

From Bloomberg.

Poland is the only one of the EU’s 10 eastern members to have avoided a recession but has been hurt by shrinking revenue that is swelling its deficit.

"President Lech Kaczynski, who threatened to hold a referendum to block the government’s planned euro adoption timetable, said on July 30 that 2015 is an “optimistic but realistic” date for Poland, while Fitch ratings forecasts the country, the largest of the EU’s eastern members, will make the switch in 2013."

Hungary...Eastern Europe's New Shoppers Paradise

The Hungarian currency's 14 percent decline this year... against the euro... is spurring Slovaks to shop til they drop in Hungary.

This phenomenon of "shopping tourism"will be studied by a European commission.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601095&sid=annjtpNckalo

Cuba running short of cash...rolls over bonds.

More indications of a serious cash crunch in Raul Castro's "new, improved Cuba."

Cuba has rolled over bonds valued at $200 MILLION euros...due this past May...asking bondholders to wait ANOTHER year for repayment.

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2009/06/short-of-cash-cuba-rolls-over-bond-issue.html