Reacting to comments of EU Commissioner Michel Barnier that the Commission wants to forbid the publication of country ratings under certain circumstances, LYMEC President Alexander Plahr today commented:
“It shows a shocking misinterpretation of the facts if Mr Barnier wants to forbid rating agencies to publish data about certain member states. Killing the messenger never was a useful strategy, nor is closing the gates on him one. In a globalized world, there would be no way to enforce such an information ban worldwide. Furthermore, markets could simply switch to other ways of gathering information, such as the prices of credit default swaps.
Instead of thinking up creative new ways to ignore bad messages, Mr Barnier should focus on the core of his portfolio, the internal market and services, in order to finally finish the internal market and thus spur growth across Europe.”
Note: LYMECs ideas on the completion of the Single Market can be found in the LYMEC polica book, available here: http://www.lymec.eu/sites/
Press contact: LYMEC Press Officer +31 6 12 909 348 (NL/EN)
Jeroen Diepemaat,
