No way, José. Portugal’s prime minister, José Sócrates, has become the latest political figure to pay the escalating cost of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. After failing to get parliamentary support for a package of austerity measures, he quit on Wednesday, causing not just Lisbon but the entire European Union a political headache. A bail-out of Portugal looks inevitable. The wider lesson for Brussels, however, is that if the EU cannot agree a strategy to resolve the euro’s structural and governance flaws, Mr Sócrates won’t be the last politician to lose his job.

In simple numbers, Portugal’s plight is not excessively burdensome. RBS Markets reckons Lisbon needs €80bn to bail it out, well within the funding capacity of existing EU financing mechanisms. A new Portuguese government could be required to negotiate any rescue financing package. But when the money comes, it should be cheaper than market funding, which at present rates would cost Portugal an additional 200 basis points in interest. Mr Sócrates could have acted sooner to secure both his austerity measures and the external financing. But it is still not too late for Portugal, provided it undertakes the drastic structural reforms needed to breathe life into its sclerotic economy.

As EU leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for their “whatever it takes to save the euro” summit, Portugal’s plight should remind them of the escalating cost of failing to do so. The “grand bargain” that was in sight as recently as two weeks ago to reform eurozone governance was always less than met the eye; it is already being dismantled. This lack of strategy is untenable. The price of “whatever it takes”, a phrase that slips too easily from the lips of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, but is never made concrete, keeps on growing. So does the political cost of austerity.