watch with the possibility of a downgrade it did so ahead of the european council meeting where engler merkel and nicolas sarkozy were supposed to thrash out a response to the european debt crisis this is let some critics to believe the agency is exerting pressure on the european council and trying to influence the course of the talks the financial crisis will be causing in the eurozone is no longer a crisis of individual countries on the periphery we think it has taken on sort of a more systemic trajectory has been spreading into some core countries and also financial institutions in the core countries ergo standard and poor's warning to downgrade practically the entire eurozone would also include the european financial support facility the euro zone's financial backstop critics say that becoming an additional player in the game of european politics standard and poor's could further complicate current attempts to create central control over fiscal deficits and state borrowing while others suggest that rating agencies cannot be blamed for sounding an alarm on the fiscal problems of the e.u. c