His remarks, on entering a meeting of the Eurogroup of euro-zone finance ministers, come after the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, sent his congratulations to Portugal's prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, for the victory, which he said "confirms the desire of most of the Portuguese people to continue the course of reforms."

Dijsselbloem rejected the idea that there is any scope to turn away from the austerity that has been pursued in Portugal in the past four years, given that "Portugal's economic and financial situation" has not changed just because there was an election. But he expressed some doubts about what comes next.

"On the other hand, the result of the elections is still, for me, a little ambiguous," he said. "So let's see what the new situation brings."

On the difficulties that the new government might face in a parliament in which its deputies are outnumbered by those on the left, the Eurogroup president said that one only has to look around at what has been happening in the euro zone to see that "political stability is important everywhere".

Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, in comments made before going into the Eurogroup meeting, also described the result as "a great success" for the coalition and "an encouragement to the policy that has been followed in Portugal".

In the election, the coalition won 38.55% of the vote, giving it 104 seats in parliament, while the opposition Socialists won 32.38% and 85 seats. Four seats for emigrant constituencies have yet to be allocated.

The Left Bloc had its best ever result in the election, more than doubling its share of the vote to 10.22%, while the Communist Party also increased its share.