Portuguese, Danish PMs hail EU financial regulation

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and visiting Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt on Monday both hailed the European Council's latest decision to tighten fiscal discipline. "Any period of indecision or hesitation in Europe would cause a world crisis," Coelho said at a press conference. Thorning-Schmidt said the decisions on financial regulation made at Thursday and Friday's summit "were healthy and good decisions on Europe." The Danish prime minister was in Lisbon to prepare the six months of Danish presidency of the European Union (EU) that will start in January 2012. Regretting the British veto at the summit, Thorning-Schmidt said the European resolution that was supported by 26 countries was "the second best decision that could be made" in the meeting. At this moment, the political discussion in Portugal is on establishing in the Constitution the deficit limit decided by the European Council. Leader of the Socialist Party, the main opposition group in the Parliament, said he was opposed to the move. At the summit, the 17 eurozone members plus up to nine non-eurozone EU states basically agreed to join a new "fiscal compact" based on "inter-governmental treaties" to strengthen fiscal rules, a proposal blocked by Britain. But rating agency Fitch said on Monday the summit failed to hammer out a "comprehensive solution" to the escalating debt crisis, which could increase short-term pressure on eurozone sovereign credit profiles and ratings.