France may now be downgraded, says ratings agency
Sunday 11 December 2011
"... Драга моја јас сум композитор а не прогнозер одговорил Сибелиус"
Economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said the move by the credit ratings agency was "inconsistent" as the eurozone was taking "decisive action" to end the debt crisis.
Плачко, плачко...
FRANKFURT (Standard & Poor's) Jan. 13, 2012--Standard & Poor's Ratings
Services today announced its rating actions on 16 members of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU or eurozone) following completion of its review.
We have lowered the long-term ratings on Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, and Spain by two notches; lowered the long-term ratings on Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia, by one notch; and affirmed the long-term ratings on Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. All ratings have been removed from CreditWatch, where they were placed with negative implications on Dec. 5, 2011 (except for Cyprus, which was first placed on CreditWatch on Aug. 12, 2011).. See list below for full details on the affected ratings.
The outlooks on the long-term ratings on Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain are negative, indicating that we believe that there is at least a one-in-three chance that the rating will be lowered in 2012 or 2013.
The outlook horizon for issuers with investment-grade ratings is up to two years, and for issuers with speculative-grade ratings up to one year. The outlooks on the long-term ratings on Germany and Slovakia are stable. We assigned recovery ratings of '4' to both Cyprus and Portugal, in accordance with our practice to assign recovery ratings to issuers rated in the speculative-grade category, indicating an expected recovery of 30%-50% should a default occur in the future.
Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone. In our view, these stresses include: (1) tightening credit conditions, (2) an increase in risk premiums for a widening group of eurozone issuers, (3) a simultaneous attempt to delever by governments and households, (4) weakening economic growth prospects, and (5) an open and prolonged dispute among European policymakers over the proper approach to address challenges.