* [Greek PM To Visit Bavaria] After strong attacks from Germany’s
ultra-conservative CSU, the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will be
visiting the party’s home region Bavaria on 9 December, reports FAZ.
Samaras will meet the party’s head Horst Seehofer for discussions –
mainly to find some middle ground as the CSU had continually asked
Angela Merkel to remove Greece from the eurozone in the the past months.
Recently though the party toned down their stance and is prepared to
co-operate with Merkel and the CDU who want to keep the country in the
EZ.

* [France Should Be Able To Continue To Borrow At Low Rates – Les
Echos] For France, the overnight news that Moody’s downgraded
the country’s credit rating, is not “just bad news”, in fact it is “good
news”, writes Les Echos. The paper notes that when the country lost its
triple A rating with SP earlier this year, the Treasury managed to
continue to borrow at low rates – something that was not the case in
Spain or Italy. There is good reason to believe that this will occur
again this time, writes the paper. Even though no market crisis is
expected, the news does potentially mean something of a political crisis
especially vis-a-vis their neighbour Germany which has not lost its
triple A rating yet.

* [Source Close To Hollande Says Moody’s Downgrade Shows Need For
Competitiveness Reforms] A source close to Francois Hollande has said
that Moody’s shock news last night only “confirmed the plan of
competitiveness” put into place by Hollande some weeks ago, reports Le
Figaro. Restoring France’s competitiveness is high on the list of
priorities and the downgrade by Moody’s therefore comes as no surprise,
says the source. France is willing to implement reforms – “no other
French government ever made such structural reforms in such a short
space of time”. .

–London Bureau; tel: +442078627492; emails:

sarah.mewes@ntkn.com/ukeditorial@marketnews.com

[TOPICS: M$X$$$,MT$$$$]