European Commission issues €7 billion in its 3rd syndicated transaction of 2024

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

The European Commission has today raised €7 billion of EU-Bonds in its 3^rd syndicated transaction for 2024.

The transaction concerned a new, single-tranche €7 billion NextGenerationEU (NGEU) Green Bond due on 4 February 2050. The long 25-year bond came at a re-offer yield of 3.339%, equivalent to a price of 98.481%. Bids received amounted to €86.5 billion, resulting in an oversubscription rate of over 12 times.

The proceeds of the transaction will be used to finance green projects in Member States’ national Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) – the roadmaps to spending under NextGenerationEU. All NGEU Green Bond issuances are guided by the NGEU Green Bond Framework, which is aligned with the Green Bond Principles of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).

The Commission has now issued approximately €35.5 billion of its €75 billion funding target for the first half of 2024. A full overview of all EU transactions executed to date is available online. A detailed overview of the EU’s planned transactions for the first half of 2024 is also available in the EU funding plan. The next transaction in the EU’s indicative issuance calendar is an EU-Bills auction on 20 March 2024.

Background

The European Commission is empowered by the EU Treaties to borrow from the international capital markets on behalf of the European Union. It is a well-established name in debt securities markets, with a track record of bond issuances over the past 40 years. All issuances executed by the European Commission are denominated exclusively in euro. EU borrowing is guaranteed by the EU budget, and contributions to the EU budget are an unconditional legal obligation of all Member States under the EU Treaties.

The European Commission uses the proceeds of its bond issuances to finance select EU policy programmes. A landmark policy programme currently funded by EU borrowing is the NextGenerationEU recovery programme. The EU will also use bond issuance to finance up to €33 billion in loans to Ukraine under the Ukraine Facility between 2024 and 2027. The Ukraine Facility provides stable financial support for Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and reforms on its EU accession track.

In January 2023, the EU launched the unified funding approach, extending the diversified funding strategy first established for NextGenerationEU to all other policy programmes funded by EU borrowing. Following the introduction of this approach, the EU funds its different policy programmes by issuing single-branded EU-Bonds rather than separately labelled bonds for individual programmes.

With today’s transaction, the EU has now issued €320.1 billion in EU-Bonds under the unified funding approach, with €55.9 billion in the form of NGEU Green Bonds. Of the proceeds raised, €220.5 billion has been disbursed to Member States under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. A further €54.5 billion has been allocated to other EU programmes benefitting from NextGenerationEU funding. €18 billion was disbursed to Ukraine under the Macro-financial Assistance + policy in 2023, while proceeds are also being used to finance disbursements under the new Ukraine Facility. Because the Commission engages in short-term liquidity management operations to smooth upcoming funding needs, amounts raised will not necessarily be equal to amounts disbursed.

The EU’s total debt outstanding now stands at €494.9 billion, including Euratom (€311 million) and EU-Bills (€16.2 billion).  

To finance EU policies as efficiently and effectively as possible, the Commission’s issuances are structured by semi-annual funding plans and pre-announced issuance windows. To support the secondary market liquidity of EU-Bonds, the Commission introduced a framework incentivising EU Primary Dealers to provide quotes on EU securities on electronic platforms in November 2023. In addition, the Commission will support the use of EU-Bonds in repurchase agreements by introducing a repurchase facility later in 2024.

The Commission is also publishing annual reports on the allocation and impact of NGEU Green Bond proceeds, with real time information about the eligible and reported green bond expenditure available in the NGEU Green Bond Dashboard here: Dashboard – European Commission (europa.eu).

Information on the allocation of the investors in this transaction is available in the transactions section of the EU as a borrower website. More information on EU’s issuance activities is available here: The EU as a borrower – investor relations – European Commission (europa.eu)