O’Neill Says Portugal, Spain ‘Lurking in Background’

Portugal and Spain are “lurking in the background” of the Irish debt crisis as the proposed rescue plan doesn’t address the euro region’s “fundamental problems,” said Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

“Unless there’s an underlying solution to not just the debt challenge, but also” to how European monetary union “sits together involving all these domestic political partners, how can we forget about the problems lurking with Portugal and Spain,” O’Neill said in an interview from London with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television’s “Inside Track” today. “All it’s done, particularly given the domestic Irish squabbling, is raise the risk factors for everybody about those places.”