The European Union loses its triple A !!

The rating agency Standard & Poor's removed the "AAA" rating - the best in its classification - she attributed so far to the European Union , highlighting , Friday, December 20 , the budget discussions between member countries became increasingly strained.

Note EU has been lowered by one notch to " AA +". It has a " stable" outlook , meaning that S & P does not intend to change it again in the medium term .

"In our view , the quality of the overall signature of the 28 EU members fell . (...) In our opinion, the EU budget negotiations have become more strained, showing , from our point of view of rising risks to the EU support from some member states , "the news agency .

At the same time , it affirmed the "AAA" of Britain , while it now a negative outlook.

Since the decommissioning of the Netherlands intervened last month , the EU still has only six states rated "AAA" . The contribution of states rated "AAA" to the EU budget has almost halved to 31.6% in five years.