The European Union will not survive if it fails to overcome a debt crisis plaguing the euro single currency area, the bloc's president Herman Van Rompuy said today.

"We're in a survival crisis," Van Rompuy said in a speech in Brussels hours from an assembly of eurozone finance ministers with Ireland and Portugal each teetering on the brink.

"We all have to work together in order to survive with the eurozone, because if we don't survive with the eurozone we will not survive with the European Union," he said.

"But I'm very confident we will overcome this," the EU leader told the European Policy Centre think tank.

Ireland admitted on Monday that it was holding talks about possible emergency aid, six months after EU nations had to rush to the rescue of Greece with a 110-billion-euro bailout.

Portugal has also warned it is at "high" risk of needing financial support, unable to borrow money on open markets other than at prohibitive rates.

Finance ministers of the 16-nation eurozone meet later today to discuss the crisis.

The eurozone has created a 440-billion-euro financial stability mechanism to come to the rescue of any troubled economies in the wake of the Greek rescue in May.

European leaders agreed last month to make the safety net permanent after it expires in 2013.

"We have shown how to deal with the crisis," Van Rompuy said.

After enduring a global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, governments across Europe launched vast austerity programmes this year to rein in growing public deficits and debts.

"I have been impressed over the last year by the political courage of most of our governments," Van Rompuy said.

"They are taking courageous measures to reduce expenses at a time of populism, despite massive protests on the street and knowing they risk electoral defeat," he said.