The complicated situation in the European financial markets just became more complicated still. The BBC has the details:

Portugal’s opposition-led parliament has passed a bill on regional finance, turning down a mooted government austerity plan. The Socialist government opposed the law, warning it would make it harder to limit Portugal’s budget deficit. . . . Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said the passing of the regional finance bill sent a bad signal, and said he would try to stop it being implemented

The problem lies in some of the places where that “bad signal” will be received. One of them will be Germany. A Greek bailout may be the only realistic way for the EU to proceed, but Brussels (or, in reality, Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, the nation that would end up footing a large part of the bill) will not want such a rescue operation to be interpreted as meaning that other countries in the euro’s ER are off the hook so far as austerity programs are concerned. Good luck with that.

My guess? The Portuguese have just given the Germans another reason to prolong the game of chicken.