While the financial crisis may be over, the fiscal crisis in major countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, will probably last for years, warns Moody’s Investors Service.

In a new report, Moody’s says that major triple A-rated nations such as the U.S., UK, France, and Germany will face challenges including “the pace and sustainability of economic growth and future interest rate trends, both of which affect the countries’ ability to manage the significant debt burdens they have assumed as a result of the crisis.”

“The next year or two will show whether growth potential has been structurally eroded or whether a robust yet sustainable recovery is possible,” said Pierre Cailleteau, the London-based managing director of Moody’s Sovereign Risk group and lead author of the report.

“Next year, [triple A] governments with stretched balance sheets will find themselves under pressure to announce credible fiscal plans and — if markets start losing patience — to start implementing them,” he said, adding, “This will complicate the recovery and test political cohesion.”

That said, the rating agency stresses that it does not see an immediate threat to the ratings of any of the nations it currently rates triple A. Despite having “lost altitude” in the triple A space, the 17 countries that carry that rating retain the characteristics necessary for the rating, Cailleteau said. Those characteristics include government financial strength, or the future trajectory of a government’s debt and its affordability.

IE