Italy will be the next country to need a full-scale bailout after the one announced on June 9 by Spain, according to Sean Jones, founding partner and president of indipendent rating agency Egan-Jones.

Speaking today to CNBC Asia, Egan said that a bailout of Italy from the European Union will be triggered by high levels of government debt and the credit quality of Italian banks, and will likely to be announced over the next 6 months.

Poor credit quality of banks and poor government finances are “joined at the hip”, Egan said, and this is the case for most countries such as the US, the UK, Switzerland and Ireland.

“It makes little sense to separate the banks’ credit quality from the governments’ credit quality because quite often, they support each other and that’s certainly the case in Italy and Spain,” he added during the same interview.

Moreover, according to Egan, Spain will be back at the EU table to ask for more that the €100bn loan signed by EU authorities which will be delivered through the European Financial Stability Fund and the European Stability Mechanism.

“We think that Italy will also come to the table within the next 6 months,” he said.

 Photo: Mariele Trimboli/InvestmentEurope