Geopolitical Tensions Cloud Developed Europe’s Growth, Investment in World Economy News 09/02/2026 The outlook for European credit remains broadly neutral, underpinned by stable economic trends; however, heightened geopolitical tensions – particularly due to significant shifts in US foreign policy – increase risks to growth and investment, Fitch Ratings says in a new report. Economic growth for the Eurozone should also remain fairly flat under our base case. Reflecting this, the balance of net rating Outlooks – the difference between Positive and Negative Outlooks – is near zero for both investment grade and high-yield issuers, though there has been a steady decline in the positive balance for high-yield in recent quarters. Fitch Ratings’ expectations for developed European credit conditions across every core sector – including sovereigns, structured finance, banks and corporates – is for no material change relative to 2025. We have changed several European sector and asset performance outlooks to ‘neutral’ for 2026, after demonstrated resilience to disruption and sluggish economic growth in 2025. Bilateral EU-US trade frictions could escalate again in 2026, although the dispute over Greenland – and related tariffs that had been threatened by the US – appears to have subsided for now. The European Parliament suspended approval of the EU–US trade deal during the Greenland row. The recent tensions with the US are likely to amplify defence-spending pressures in Europe, adding to the challenges facing fiscal consolidation efforts in some countries. Source: Fitch Ratings 2026-02-09 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share