EU Raises EUR 20 Billion in Recovery Bonds

As its first attempt to test financial markets, the European Commission on Tuesday announced it had raised EUR 20 billion in 10-year bonds successfully. The EU wants to finance the EU27’s COVID-19 crisis recovery.

Speaking to the press, EC president Ursula von der Leyen said that the inaugural transaction of the NextGeneration EU program is the largest ever institutional bond issuance in Europe and will be spent on member states’ national recovery plans. “Europe is attractive, and by the end of this year we expect to have issued around EUR 100 billion in bonds and bills,” she explained.

According to the Commission, the bonds issued have been priced very attractively and the EU will pay less than 0.1% interest on them. EC budget commissioner Johannes Hahn reported that the bond issuance had attracted investors from across Europe and beyond, including central banks and pension funds. The EU hopes to raise about EUR 800 billion by the end of 2026.

Source: AP