Coping in the sovereign debt crisis: The role of EU in improving Greece's credit rating (original) (raw)

Six years after Greece’s credit rating started going downhill, the country is now recuperating from a domestic economic crisis that almost caused the ‘Grexit’ and the downfall of the 28-country European Union (EU). Greece had once reached rock bottom when it received junk bond status from top three credit rating agencies – Moody’s Investor Service, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services , and Fitch Ratings – in 2010 and had to pass extreme austerity measures to repay their sovereign debt. However, Greece was not alone in overcoming the crisis as other international organizations and its fellow Eurozone states joined together to craft bailout deals and to ratify temporary and permanent funding programmes. Through collective efforts of the community, Greece, has recently received upgraded credit ratings with a stable outlook. In this paper, I will examine the role of EU and its subsectors in improving the credit worthiness of its sovereign debt crisis-inflicted members towards collective financial stability in the Eurozone. Keywords: European Union, credit rating, austerity measures, financial stability