Newsletter July/August 2011: The wit and wisdom of Michel Barnier

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) are intensely disliked by many EU financial officials, a situation compounded by, among other things, the downgrading of Portugal’s sovereign debt to junk status by Moody’s in early July. CRAs have already been subject to two rounds of regulation in Europe since the financial crisis, and the European Commissioner for internal markets, Michel Barnier is planning a third, focusing in particular on the methodology used to rate sovereign bonds.