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M. Continuo

Portugal's ousted PM says Socialist government proposal unstable


    LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's caretaker prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho told the country's president on Friday the Socialists, who ousted him last week, must come up with a more viable government solution than the currently proposed minority cabinet with parliament support from the far left.

    Passos Coelho met President Anibal Cavaco Silva who has to decide whether to allow the Socialists to form a government with parliament backing from the Communists and Left Bloc parties, which Passos Coelho called "radical and anti-European".

    "I told the president that is it now up to the Socialist Party, which toppled the government, to present a government solution," he said, adding that under existing pacts with the Socialists the far left do not guarantee that European budget rules will be respected.

    (Reporting By Andrei Khalip, editing by Shrikesh Laxmidas)