Not a good year for Portugal or EU

For Portugal and the EU the past year was an extremely difficult one but the Union won't collapse, writes Portugal's ex-head of state Mário Soares in the daiy Diário de Notícias: "It was a bad year for Portugal because the financial markets wanted to turn us into junk (just imagine!). But it was also bad for the EU. ... Fortunately, however, the EU won't disappear and won't be integrated into an 'impossible European state' either, even if the immediate future seems unlikely to bring calm any time soon. Europe won't plunge into the abyss as the prophets of doom had predicted. ... As we all know the crisis is in truth a global one and affects everyone in some way. Perhaps this is why there is so much pressure to save the EU from collapse. Because in the past 50 years it has become a benchmark for the world."

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