Portugal first to ratify Fiscal Pact

"Is the treaty needed?" asks the Expresso editorial of April 14, one day after the Portuguese Parliament ratified the European Fiscal Pact. With Portugal the first EU country to green light the controversial treaty - Expresso argues that only "time will tell if [it] was useful for something", and offers two possible answers to the question put in the headline -

Yes, because the new European Fiscal Compact is fundamental if Germany and other northern European countries are willing to strengthen protection and rescue mechanisms for the eurozone. And no, because the treaty establishes rules that are almost impossible to fulfill on a regular basis, even by the states now imposing them.

The Expresso editorial adds that -

... this will at best serve to ensure the commitment and solidarity of the strongest countries to the countries rescued or at risk. (...) And will show that the eurozone can move on without leaving countries behind. And to enforce budgetary discipline on countries that have almost always ignored it.

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In an opinion article published in the same weekly, sociologist Pedro Adão e Silva warns that the consequences of this treaty are evident -

If the Treaty is to be taken seriously, the least developed member states will be deprived of the economic policy mechanisms that make recovery possible, while continuing to lack the desirable financial instruments, characteristic of the federal system. In the end, we alienate sovereignty, without any compensation.