Leiders EU: Portugal niet onder druk (en)
EU leaders insisted on Friday that a report that heavy pressure was being applied to Portugal to apply for financial assistance from a eurozone bail-out fund was false.
"It's absolutely, completely false - every reference for an aid plan for this country," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso i, speaking to reporters at an OECD i conference in Paris.
"It has neither been asked for and neither have we suggested it. It is absolutely false."
Earlier in the morning, in an article quoting unnamed sources, Financial Times Deutschland reported that the European Central Bank and a majority of member states in the eurozone were pressuring the narrow Iberian nation to be the third country to tap the European Financial Stability Facility i.
Commission economics spokesman Amadeu Tardio later added: "I am not aware of any talks in which Portugal might be pressed to accept aid."
Germany also rushed to wheel out a statement from the country's finance ministry, with a spokesman saying: "Exerting pressure is not a mechanism that is foreseen by the euro rescue shield."
The office of the Portuguese prime minister, Jose Socrates, echoed Mr Barroso's words, saying that the report was "totally false".