Portugal to request international bailout

LISBON -- Portugal became the third debt-stressed European country to need a bailout as the prime minister announced Wednesday his country will request international assistance to ease its rapidly worsening financial crisis.

Portugal has followed Greece and Ireland, other financially troubled eurozone countries, in asking for aid from Europe's bailout reserve and the International Monetary Fund.

Analysts expect Portugal will need up to $114.4 billion -- an amount bearable for Europe's finances.

Portugal's plight is pressing as it scrambles to raise increasingly scarce funding for its economy. European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, said in a statement the request "will be processed in the swiftest possible manner."

A bailout had long been in the cards as Portugal, one of the 17-nation eurozone's smallest and weakest economies, has struggled for months to finance its economy amid the fear of reluctant investors that it won't be able to settle its debts.

Over the past year, Portugal insisted it didn't want assistance because the terms of a big loan would lock it into austerity measures for years, lowering the standard of living in what is already one of Western Europe's poorest countries.