The European Union will seek to raise €15.3 billion for Portugal and Ireland in the next three months to fund rescue loans for the two eurozone nations, the EU said yesterday.

The announcement came two days after EU finance ministers approved a three-year, €78-billion bailout for Portugal under a programme that requires Lisbon to slash spending and sell public assets.

Ireland was granted its own €67.5 billion bailout late last year after a banking crisis blew a mass-ive hole in its public finances.

The EU and its core eurozone bloc will use two top-rated financial mechanisms to conduct various borrowing operations for the two nations between May 23 and July 15.

The instruments issued for the two countries “should be mainly in standard benchmark maturities of five to 10 years denominated in euros”, the EU said in a statement.

The International Monetary Fund will provide “complement-ary disbursements” as agreed under the joint EU-IMF rescues for both nations.

It will be the first operation for Portugal while funds have already been raised for Ireland.

EU authorities said they had decided to add Portugal to the issuance calendar for Ireland in order “to ensure smooth market operations over the entire duration of the support programmes”.

Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said on Tuesday that Portugal expected to pay an average interest rate of 5.1 per cent on the €78 billion bail-out funds.

Ireland has failed so far to convince European partners to reduce its average 5.8 per cent interest rate.