Daniel Hannan’s post on the establishment of the European Credit Rating Agency makes some good points. The recent downgrade of a number of European countries is a consequence of low growth and massive debts and deficits.

Instead of implementing far-reaching structural reforms, however, an increasing number of European politicians talk about an Anglo-American conspiracy to sink Europe’s single currency, the euro. According to one of the most prominent EU parliamentarians, Elmar Brok of the German Christian Democratic Party, credit-rating agencies Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch are part of the American economic war against Europe. The EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso implied as much some time ago.

So, naturally, what the EU needs is a European credit-rating agency that will provide an “objective” and “independent” analysis of the “true” state of the European economies. (The EU already has an “independent” think-tank called Bruegel that is largely funded by the European governments.)