Commission goes to the market for the sixth time under SURE, raises further €13 billion amid strong demand

The Commission has today raised further €13 billion in the sixth borrowing operation under the SURE instrument, to help protect jobs and people in work. The issuing consisted of two bonds, with €8 billion due for repayment in March 2026 and €5 billion due for repayment in May 2046. The bonds attracted a strong demand from a wide range of investors, which ensured good pricing conditions that the Commission is directly passing on to the beneficiary Member States. Commissioner Johannes Hahn, in charge of Budget and Administration said: “This second SURE transaction for this month and the sixth one since the start of the programme has once again attracted a strong interest by the market. We have obtained favourable pricing for the beneficiary EU Member States and their citizens. This is a good illustration of EU added value at times of pandemic and yet another encouraging message in the run-up to the borrowing under NextGenerationEU later this year.” The 5-year bond was priced at a negative yield of -0.488% whereas the 25-year bond was priced slightly positively, at 0.476%. (See here for more details on the pricing of the transaction). With this third borrowing operation for the first quarter of the year, the Commission has raised a total of €36 billion between January and March 2021, in line with its original estimates. So far, the Commission has raised a total of €75.5 billion, with further €13-€14 billion scheduled for the second quarter of 2021. Sixteen EU Member States have so far received funding under SURE. At the moment, a total of 19 Member States are foreseen to receive €90.6 under this instrument whose firepower is up to €100 billion.  Member States are therefore still entitled to submit requests for financial support up to SURE’s full volume. Later this year, the Commission is due to also launch the borrowing under NextGenerationEU, the recovery instrument of €750 billion (in 2018 prices or some €800 billion in current prices) to help build a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.