The eurozone’s third-largest economy is being sucked deeper into the sovereign debt crisis, since one of the major credit rating agencies downgraded yesterday its credit rating. S&P downgraded Italy to “A/A-1” from a “A+/A-1+” grade because of “Italy’s weakening economic growth prospects”, with a negative outlook, meaning further downgrades are possible. The move – S&P’s first downgrade of Italy since 2006 – places S&P’s rating on Italy three notches below that of Moody’s, the rating agency that many had expected to cut first.
Companies & Regulation
The French Minister of Finance, François Baroin, concluded the G7 meeting in Marseille with a statement that an equilibrium had been found between the necessity for fiscal consolidation and the necessity to avoid a recession. What kind of equilibrium is he talking about and is this equilibrium stable?
The discussions in Marseille started on a fairly correct assessment of the situation: one needs to tackle the sovereign debts crisis and the global economy (and in particular western economies) is slowing down.
Suspected to be too vulnerable because of their “Greec holdings” two of the biggest French banks, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole have been downgraded by the credit rating agency Moody’s.
The French bank BNP Paribas published a disclaimer to this article signed by our Director of development Nicolas Lecaussin and published in the Wall Street Journal. The paper is mentioning the difficulties of some of the French banks, including BNP.
is the number of new regulatory actions in the works in the United States. Even before those 4,257 new regulations go into effect, the Federal Register shows more than 81,000…
The upper chamber of the German parliament is due to vote on the new expanded powers of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) on 23 September. At that point, early…
The world is probably going to change after the recent downgrading by Standard&Poor’s of the US debt rating from triple A to AA+. Beyond the disturbing loss of the landmark Treasuries represented for global finance, what is important here is the awareness that even the biggest world economy is not allowed anymore to do just anything with public spending. The message is clear. The current crisis is actually giving the opportunity to put the political genie back in the bottle. It is now time to grasp this chance, but will political decision makers have the will to do it?
Portugal has undergone a huge change. There is a completely new political leadership: younger, better prepared, and much more open to the civil society. But even this “right wing” government lack the theory to understand the causes of the crisis Portugal currently faces, and thus seem unable to deliver real change.
Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria representatives recently said they would relax key bank secrecy laws to meet growing international demands for change. Their announcements followed similar moves by Belgium, Liechtenstein and…
The credit rating agency Moody’s said it might downgrade the credit ratings of three of the largest French banks because of their exposure to the Greek debt crisis. According to…
