PORTUGAL’S Socialist prime minister demanded the resignation of Euro-group president Jeroen Dijsselbloem yesterday after he insulted the EU’s southern member states.

Antonio Costa said it was “absolutely unacceptable for him to stay in his post.”

In an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung earlier this week, the eurozone chief derided Mediterranean countries seeking debt relief as spendthrifts.

“As a social democrat, I attribute exceptional importance to solidarity,” claimed Mr Dijsselbloem, who is also the Dutch finance minister.

But he added: “You also have obligations. You cannot spend all the money on drinks and women and then ask for help.”

“Mr Dijsselbloem has insulted us,” Mr Costa protested yesterday.

“Mr Dijsselbloem has shown himself to be sexist, racist, xenophobic and an embarrassment for Europe, and because of that he cannot hold any EU post.”

Mr Costa’s coalition of socialists and greens — which has communist support — was elected in October 2015 on the back of discontent over EU-dictated austerity measures imposed in return for a €78billion (£67.5bn) bailout in 2011.

At the European Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Dijsselbloem refused to apologise for his insults in the face of criticism from both conservative and social democratic MEPs.

Mr Dijsselbloem’s Labour Party was all but wiped out in last week’s general election, slumping from 35 MPs in the 150-seat Second Chamber to just nine — or from second place to seventh.

In Greece, straining under a third wave of austerity forced on its Syriza government by Mr Dijsselbloem and EU Commission president JeanClaude Juncker in return for a July 2015 bailout, leftwingers welcomed the rout of of the eurozone chief’s party.

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos warned that Mr Dijsselbloem had adopted “stereotypes that widen the gap between north and south and in reality pave the way ... for extremist views.”