This slide shows the rating actions of the three global credit rating agencies – Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P. As of 30 June 2020, 39 countries have been downgraded while there had been 101 negative outlook revisions.
In this context, governments have committed themselves to what is called the Pact for Stability and Growth in order to reduce government deficits to close to balance or even to create surpluses in their budgets. And indeed over the past years, government finance positions in Europe have improved remarkably.