(Finance) – Of the 30 developed European countries with a rating of S&P – which also include the four members of the G7 –, 26 have maintained a Outlook stableafter a series of downgrades at the beginning of the year. The other four – Andorra, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal – have instead maintained a Outlook positiveThis is what emerged from the reports of S&P Global Ratings that analyze mid-year 2024 trends for the rating sovereigns of developed European markets and emerging EMEA markets.
“The decisions on finances public by new or yet-to-be-formed governments that have seen a sharp increase in public debt following the pandemic – notably Belgium, France and the UK – could impact ratings,” analysts at the rating agency warn. “As fiscal, capital markets and economic union has not yet been completed, Europe is in a position to downside competitive compared to the States Unitedwhich is manifested by the increase in the productivity gap between the two economic blocs”, they then pointed out.
For EMEA emerging markets, positive outlooks outnumber negative ones by more than 3:1, although ratings remain two notches below the levels reached shortly before the 2008 global financial crisis. Negative outlooks instead mainly reflect worsening fiscal imbalances, often linked to social tensions or military conflicts. Excluding large energy exporters, the public debt-to-GDP ratio in the region is on average 8 percentage points higher than before the pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
S&P noted that sovereigns rated with a Positive Outlook share some common factors, including better coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, stronger fiscal performance and, for the most part, reasonably open economies.