Some governments fear them, others decry them. Ratings agencies have shown they can move markets against a country they judge not to have been irresponsible with their finances, pushing up borrowing prices and causing headaches for politicians.

And while Poland's various credit ratings may not be as high as some of its Western neighbors, they are respectable, and importantly, they are stable – an advantage in today's uncertain economic environment.

At the beginning of August, Standard & Poor's affirmed Poland's long- and short-term foreign currency rating at A-/A-2 , while maintaining the country’s long- and short-term local currency sovereign credit ratings at A/A-1, stating that the outlook for both remains stable.

The last time Moody's took a ratings action on Poland, in April this year, it assigned the country an A2 rating with a stable outlook on its Swiss franc-denominated double-tranche bond issuance maturing in 2015 and 2018.

Meanwhile, in February 2012, Fitch Ratings affirmed Poland's long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at “A-” and its Long-term local currency IDR at “A” with the outlook on both ratings classified as stable.

In contrast, late July saw Moody's make waves when it changed its outlook for Germany's AAA credit rating to negative, the first step towards a possible downgrade. A downgrade of Europe's biggest economy could potentially send the kind of shock waves markets saw after the US was downgraded by S&P last summer.

“Ratings agencies' decisions do have an impact on the behavior of the financial markets, by having an effect on how investors perceive a given market. But it is an indirect sort of impact,” said Piotr Bielski, senior economist at Bank Zachodni WBK. He added however, that “their effect has lessened as they failed to predict, for example, the economic crisis thus provoking the recent debates about credit their credibility.”

“Currently, rating agencies do not have a big impact on the Polish economy, especially since their ratings lately have not been changing radically,” said Piotr Palenik, an analyst at ING Securities. “Had the ratings been markedly worse or better, then surely that would have had an impact on the price of bonds.”

But big impact or not, it would be unwise for the Polish government to test their resolve. Positive, stable ratings give Poland an important measure of credibility as an emerging economy that may not have markets' full confidence. The agencies have been kind to Poland mainly because of the government's willingness to tackle unpopular reforms. But how long that will last is an open question.