By David Berman Despite a positive backdrop in Europe – where Germany and France have agreed on a way to better integrate the European economy and Italy announced new austerity plans – Standard & Poor's looks set to interrupt the party. According to The Financial Times, the credit rating agency will announce later on Monday that it is putting Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Luxembourg on "creditwatch negative." The big surprise here is that these nations are the region's fiscal winners. That means there is a chance that Germany and other top-rated countries could see their credit ratings taken down a notch within 90 days, to AA+ from triple-A. The reason for the warning? The Times quoted S&P as saying that with Germany it is concerned about "the potential impact (...) of what we view as deepening political, financial, and monetary problems with the European economic and monetary union." In other words, there are contagion fears at work here.