Moody's downgrades six Eurozone countries and issues UK-France-Austria warning

Credit rating agency (CRA) Moody's decided on 13 February to downgrade sovereign ratings of Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia by a notch and Spain by two, while warning Austria, France and the UK they may lose their coveted AAA ratings.
Moody's decision was far less extreme than their competitor Standard and Poor's' action of a month ago, but for the first time has cast doubt on the UK's top rating.
The agency, however, confirmed Germany's top-tier rating as "appropriate" and affirmed the AAA rating on the Eurozone's bailout, the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF).
The downgrades came a day after Greece's parliament approved a set of austerity measuressecuring a new bailout, and Italy borrowed at much lower rates than a month ago.
This latest credit-rating downgrade may seriously increase the borrowing costs of struggling economies.
Morning trading saw European stocks and markets dropping, but they slowly recovered as trading continued.
Downgrades like such as these, especially a downgrade for Italy when all market indicators appeared to show the opposite, further alienate CRAs from the European political mainstream and reinforce calls for the introduction of an EU credit authority.
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