Belgium

As we reported on Friday, Dexia, the troubled Franco-Belgian bank, has been nationalised over the weekend. At the time, I indicated this would be a negative for the sovereign’s creditworthiness. Moody’s, the ratings agency, agrees and has…

Moody's Investors Service has today placed Belgium's Aa1 local and foreign currency government bond ratings on review for possible downgrade, while affirming its short-term ratings at Prime-1.

Franco-Belgian bank Dexia is being officially nationalised according to two Belgian newspapers.

The point is that this is a rolling crisis where investors have realised that the sovereign debt profiles right across Euroland have problems. And because there is no lender of last resort, the weakest debtors get plucked off one by one…

Euroland is coming apart at the seams. Belgian/Bund spreads are now also over 200bps along with Italy and Spain. Belgium has just entered the periphery and France is not far behind.

The Europeans can’t catch a break. The crisis has already flared before they have had a legitimate opportunity to deal with the medium- and longer-term issues. Willem Buiter says the Europeans need a 2.5 trillion euro EFSF to deal with…

When the pejorative acronym PIGS was first created, it was supposed to be a moniker for the southern European states (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). However, Italy has done much better than housing-crisis stricken Ireland and so…

by Win Thin Here are some more thoughts on S&P moving its outlook on Belgium’s AA+ rating to negative from stable. S&P noted that it may cut the rating by one notch within the next six months if the major political parties do not…

Belgium has a caretaker government. It has been unable to form a government since the June election after the previous government collapsed in April. The Netherlands is also struggling to put a coalition together. Italy comes to the fore…

I am going to describe the beginnings of the Euro from a German point of view. I apologize if this post seems unduly harsh. It is meant to give you a more caricaturised view of the breakdown in the euro-zone which dominates the German…