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EU slams rating agencies as Ireland graded ‘junk’
Business digest: ‘Stiff measures’ proposed to limit credit rating agencies’ power over failing countries
EU ministers are preparing to wage a war against credit rating agencies, after Ireland joined Portugal and Greece to become the third bailed-out country to have its creditworthiness downgraded to junk status.
Moody's this week cut Ireland's rating without prior warning, despite the Irish government's protestation that it was doing all it could "to put [its] house in order".
Michel Barnier, the commissioner in charge of the EU's single market, responded by saying that he was planning "stiff measures" to tame the credit rating agencies' power. Moody's, Standard and Poor's and Fitch account for 90 per cent of their industry.
"You don't rate a country the same way you rate a company or a product," Barnier said. "That's an issue. We're examining that issue."
Last week fellow EU commissioner Viviane Reding calling the agencies a "cartel" that should be "smashed up" following their downgrading of Portugal.
Read a full report at the Guardian. ·
