S&P downgrades eurozone bailout fund to AA+

• Rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the creditworthiness of the eurozone's rescue fund by one notch to AA+, putting the fund's ability to raise cheap bailout money at risk.
• The downgrade follows ratings cuts for AAA-rated France and Austria, whose financial guarantees were key to the creditworthiness of the European Financial Stability Facility.
• If replicated by other rating agencies, S&P's move complicates the eurozone's efforts to emerge from a debt crisis that has dragged on for more than two years. It also underlines how reliant states and financial firms still are on the opinion of rating agencies, despite policymakers across Europe vowing on Monday to curtail their influence.