Credit rating agencies were too late to address the Greek crisis and now risk exaggerating the situation, finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told website nu.nl on Thursday in response to readers’ questions.

‘Credit agencies saw the risks being posed by Greece too late and should have warned about them much earlier,’ De Jager said. ‘Now things are going wrong, they risk being too tough.’
This means that the credit-worthiness of countries can be better assessed by the International Monetary Fund, which monitors the eurozone together with the European central bank and European commission, he said.
‘These institutions have much better insight into countries than private credit ratings agencies,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should give greater emphasis to the opinion of the IMF.’

Junk
Greece, Ireland and Portugal have all been given poor ratings by the agencies, such as Moody’s and S&P. EU officials have already criticised Moody’s decision to downgrade Ireland to ‘junk’ status.
And, according to the BBC, ratings agency Moody’s has said it may cut the US AAA debt rating, citing the ‘rising possibility’ the US will default on its debt obligations.