EU's Van Rompuy rules out Portugal as next Greece

(BRUSSELS) - European Union president Herman Van Rompuy said on Friday there was no danger of Portugal being sucked into the same sort of debt whirlpool as Greece.

"The problem is completely different for Portugal," Van Rompuy said when asked if he feared that Lisbon might be next to seek help dealing with a bulging annual deficit and national debt.

"I really believe that the situations are not in the least comparable and that the markets realise that, and will realise that in the coming days," he added.

He was speaking after European leaders clinched a deal that re-writes the 11-year-old eurozone's rule-book, with loans, backed by the IMF and under strict conditions, primed for miscreants like Greece.

"You can only compare what's comparable," Van Rompuy added, also distinguishing between what had happened in Athens and fears over Spain's high deficit.

He underlined that "statistical fraud" in Greece had turned a drama into a crisis, after errors were unearthed by the new Greek socialist government when it took power late last year.

European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet meanwhile said that Portugal's decision to freeze public sector wages was "a step in the right direction."