Fitch issues rating warning
A protracted energy crisis, and the resulting need for price support, could stretch Greece’s finances to the point that its debt might have to be downgraded, credit ratings agency Fitch warns.
The government has made achieving an investment-grade rating in the first half of 2023 – for the first time since 2010 – a top priority. Getting that rating could significantly boost the country’s attractiveness as a foreign investment destination but would also be a major selling point in the likely double election to come not long after that.
Fitch notes that the fiscal cost of supporting households and businesses against exorbitant electricity bills is the highest in the EU, as a percentage of GDP, at 3.7%, although it notes that the net burden, after accounting for the EU’s emissions trading scheme and a windfall tax on power utilities’ excess profits, will be 1.4% of GDP.
