Found a nice Blogentry which displays the current high CDS Spreads in the market. CDS stands for Credit Default Swap, its basically an insurance against the Default of a the issuer of a paper (i.e. the case the issuer doesn't pay back the debt). You can buy such insurance also for countries.
Comments (2)
The credit spread of Malta is wrong. As Malta's credit risk has a very low market liquidity the spread is outdated. The last trade dates from 26.06.2007, well before the outbreak of the bad part of the crisis. So, the true spread schould be much higher.
Regards
ketzerisch from verlorenegeneration.wordpress.com
Thank you very much for the information :) That sounds like a conlcusive answer to the "Malta-Problem", and it increases the validitity that the marked doesn't trust in the EU as much as the rating agencies do!
Added a new paragraph! I myself was very curious about those numbers, especially since the fear about Austria arised, and I was pretty happy when I found the blog ;) Thats why I am spreading the word.