Sovereign risk is an indicator that reflects the ability of a country to pay its total debt.

Every financial product has risk associated to it. In this case, sovereign risk is taken on by investors when they purchase foreign bonds.

Investors want to have the maximum amount of information before making investments. There are some international firms that are specialized in this area, such as Standard & Poor´s, Moody´s or Fitch Rating. These companies have an important function: they have to evaluate the solvency of countries and elaborate a rating. So, people can know if they are making a "safe" and quality investment.

These rating agencies use letters in their classification. The best score is “AAA”, that is, the sovereign risk is minimum. But, if a country obtains the letter "D", the situation is very bad; it basically cannot pay its debt.

This risk qualification can be divided only into two groups: "Investment Grade", which means that the investment can be good and there is little risk... or "Junk-Bond", the default risk is very high, the financial situation the country is unstable…

Currently, Spain has a rating of BBB. It is a stable rating. It indicates that there is low risk and shows that Spain has a sufficient capacity to pay its debt in the agreed terms and conditions.

Riesgo-país: http://www.expansion.com/diccionario-economico/riesgo-pais.html

Riesgo soberano: http://www.expansion.com/diccionario-economico/riesgo-soberano.html

La Calificación del Riesgo Soberano - Dialnet: dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/3201064.pdf S&P mantiene el "rating" a España y eleva su previsión de crecimiento | ECONOMÍA | EL PAÍS: http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/04/10/actualidad/1428689755_997103.htm

Rating de Standards and Poors - Calificación de deuda 2015 | datosmacro.com: http://www.datosmacro.com/ratings/standardandpoors