S&P raises Italy's outlook to 'positive' and confirms BBB+ rating
Giorgetti: "Italian credibility knows no rest". GDP 2025 better than expected: +0.7%, two decimal places above the government's target. 2026 starts from +0.3%
The new year of international bond examinations continues as the old one had ended. Late in the evening, S&P raised from 'stable' to 'positive' the outlook accompanying the 'BBB+' rating assigned to BTp with the April 2025 promotion. The improvement in the outlook stems from the 'resilience' shown by Italy 'in the face of trade and tariff uncertainty', and confirmed by the 'net current account surpluses' and the 'continuous improvements in the country's net external credit position'. All this while 'fiscal consolidation is progressively advancing', and private wealth supports an economy seen growing at +0.8% this year. "Italy's trajectory of greater credibility knows no pause," Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti commented warmly, emphasising once again that "work pays off
Towards the A series
S&P's decision may put our government bonds on the road to a return to the A series even among the Big Three, after the appetiser offered in October with the upgrade to 'A(low)' by Dbrs. On S&P's scale, that level was lost in January 2012 when the spread was travelling steadily above 500 points and the Monti government had just begun the fight to avoid the spectre of default or the prospect of international rescue for the country. That was a different geological era than today, with the spread against the Bund now dozing quietly at 61 while international demand for Italian government bonds responds to every move by the Treasury with multiple requests compared to supply. And it is the same agency that 'if Italy continues to strengthen its external financial position and reduce its budget deficit' an upgrade would be in sight.
Istat data
The Friday in Via XX Settembre had already started well, with the positive surprise of the ISTAT data on GDP. Between October and December, explained the Institute of Statistics in its preliminary estimate, the Italian economy performed better than expected, with a result that builds a good premise also for 2026. The last quarter of 2025 shows in fact a GDP growth of +0.3% (+0.8% in the comparison with the same period of the year before), which brings the annual figure to +0.7%.
If the annual accounts expected on 2 March confirm these numbers, therefore, last year will show two decimal points of growth more than those forecast by the government, also thanks to an upward correction on the third quarter, which now marks +0.2% instead of the +0.1% indicated so far; and from these calculations could come another small help in the effort to keep the deficit below 3% and thus to exit the EU excessive deficit procedure as early as next spring.
The projections
Such a concentrated sprint in the final part of the year is also good for the 2026 accounts, to which it offers a statistical legacy of +0.3%, which alone accounts for more than 40% of the annual growth target of +0.7% set by the government. The wind has blown in the sails of all the European economies; even the Union as a whole scored +0.3% in the last three months of 2025, bringing the annual figure to +1.6% (+1.5% in the Eurozone) more than double the Italian result. The distance from the average continental rhythms therefore lengthens compared to the three decimals (+0.7% in Italy against +1% in the EU) of last year. In a narrower perspective, however, in the final months of 2025 Italian growth caught up with the European path, after the negative differential fluctuating between two and three decimals in the previous quarters. So?
