Defending austerity is not getting any easier for Europe’s politicians. And Vitor Gaspar, Portugal’s finance minister, has it harder than others. The country’s unemployment rate is 14 percent, and its economy, which has been stagnant for years, is expected to shrink another 3.3 percent in 2012.

Opponents of austerity may cite Portugal as a country that could benefit from economic stimulus and kinder budget cuts. But Mr. Gaspar, speaking to The New York Times last week, has a message for observers who say Europe needs to substantially relax its austerity approach: We tried stimulus and it backfired.

Like some other European countries, Portugal tried what Mr. Gaspar called “a Keynesian style expansion” in 2008, referring to a theory by economist John Maynard Keynes . But it didn’t turn things around, and may have made things worse.

“My country definitely provides a cautionary tale that shows that, in some instances, short-run expansionary policies can be counterproductive,” Mr. Gaspar said. “There are some limitations to the intuitions from Keynes,” arguing that the economist himself saw instances when demand-stoking policies might not lead to growth.

The tough line has yet to win markets over. The yield on Portuguese government bonds – more than 11 percent on longer-term bonds — is substantially higher than the yields on debt issued by Ireland, Spain or Italy. Mr. Gaspar says the yields are “not a reflection of the fundamentals.”

The main fear among investors is that Portugal is going to have to ask for a second bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, which committed $103 billion of financial aid in 2011. The package assumes Portugal will be fit enough by the middle of next year to issue new bonds to private investors without having to pay punitive interest rates. Few investors think Portugal will be ready. As a result, they expect Portugal to do just enough reforms to persuade the I.M.F. to come up with a second bailout.

But Mr. Gaspar says that view misses what’s at stake for Portugal. The reforms required by “the Troika” – the I.M.F., the European Union and the European Central Bank, which effectively determine what aid-receiving countries must do — are exactly what Portugal needs, he says: “This is the right approach to eliminate the massive imbalances that have plagued the country for years.”

But deep imbalances – like a weak export sector, budget deficits and uncompetitive labor markets – can take years to remove from some economies, said Richard Batty, global investment strategist at Standard Life Investments. But, Mr. Batty said, “as things stand, we can’t see countries like Portugal and Greece making these reforms in a timely manner that satisfies the Troika or investors.”