European Commission successfully completes its fifth syndicated transaction for 2023 by raising €7 billion

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The European Commission, which issues EU-Bonds on behalf of the EU, has today raised a further €7 billion of EU-Bonds in its fifth syndicated transaction for 2023. The single tranche transaction consisted of a new 15-year bond due on 4 October 2038.

The transaction met with a strong interest from investors, who placed bids totalling €63.5 billion, or an oversubscription rate of over 9 times.

The proceeds of this transaction will be used to support the NextGenerationEU recovery programme, the Macro-Financial Assistance+ programme for Ukraine as well as Macro-Financial Assistance to other countries (Moldova and Jordan, for a total of €240 million), in line with the Commission’s approach of issuing single branded “EU-Bonds” rather than separately labelled bonds for individual programmes.

With today’s transaction, the Commission has raised nearly €50 billion out of its €80 billion funding target for the first half of 2023. Out of the €80 billion funding target, some €70 billion will be directed to the NextGenerationEU recovery programme, and around €10 billion to the Macro-Financial Assistance+ programme for Ukraine. A full overview of all transactions executed to date is available online.

A detailed overview of the EU’s planned transactions for the first half of 2023 is available in the EU funding plan.

Background

The European Commission is borrowing on international capital markets on behalf of the European Union and disbursing the funds to Member States and third countries under various borrowing programmes. EU borrowing is guaranteed by the EU budget, with contributions to the EU budget being an unconditional legal obligation of all Member States under the Treaties.

Since January 2023, the European Commission is issuing single branded EU-Bonds rather than separately labelled bonds for individual programmes.  The proceeds are then allocated to relevant programmes according to the procedures set out in the applicable agreements.

On the basis of EU-Bonds raised since mid-2021, the Commission has so far disbursed €152.52 billion in grants and loans to the EU Member States under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, on top of further support to other EU programmes benefitting from NextGenerationEU funding.

The Commission has also disbursed €6 billion to Ukraine under the Macro-Financial Assistance + programme, with further disbursements of €1.5 billion each scheduled for May and June 2023. This programme – of €18 billion for the full 2023 – follows the disbursement of €7.2 billion by the Commission in emergency MFA loans to Ukraine in 2022. Prior to that, the EU had provided over €5 billion to Ukraine through five MFA programmes since 2014.

Under the Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) programme, the EU provides medium/long-term loans or grants, or a combination of these, to partner countries experiencing a balance of payments crisis. MFA beneficiaries include Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Jordan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Tunisia, Ukraine.

To further boost the liquidity of EU-Bonds, the Commission is preparing a framework for providing investors with pricing quotes on EU securities, and is starting to build a repo facility to support market participants in trading its bonds, which will be implemented by early 2024.

Information about the allocation of investors is being made available in the transactions section of the EU as a borrower website.