Credit quality in the European Union (EU) worsened in the first quarter of 2002, according to Standard & Poor's (S&P).
This is contrary to the positive trends shown elsewhere in the world.
The rating agency said that the EU's credit ratio - the ratio of downgrades to upgrades - rose to 20.5.
S&P commented that "even though the actual number of downgrades declined in comparison with the fourth quarter of 2001, a sharper reduction in the number of upgrades prevented an improvement in the credit ratio.
