Remarks by Commissioner Hahn at the press conference on the issuance of the first NextGenerationEU green bond
“Check against delivery”
Exactly 119 days ago, we met in this very same VIP corner to speak about the historic first NextGenerationEU issuance.
Less than four months later, we are again here and I am more than happy to debrief you about the historic first NextGenerationEU green bond.
Today, we issued €12 billion via a 15-year bond due on 4 February 2037.
The final order book was over €135 billion, which meant that the bond has been over 11 times oversubscribed.
This marks the largest green bond orderbook ever in global capital markets, and the largest green bond ever issued, in the world!
With this, another record has been broken, and the first NextGenerationEU green bond is the latest of many “firsts” for the EU as a borrower!
You remember that the first SURE bond attracted the largest ever order book in the history of sovereigns, supranational and agencies issuers, and the first NextGenerationEU bond was the largest-ever institutional bond issuance in Europe, the largest-ever institutional single tranche transaction and the largest amount the EU has raised in a single transaction.
With this transaction, the EU has had a strong start of its NextGenerationEU green bond programme of up to €250 billion between now and 2026.
This programme is set to turn the EU into the biggest green bond issuer worldwide and have a strong positive impact on the markets.
It will:
- Give access to green investments to a wide range of investors, by bringing such a sizeable green, safe asset to the market.
- This will further boost the green bond market and serve as an inspiration to other issuers
- It will allow investors to diversify their portfolios of green investments with a highly rated liquid asset, thereby potentially accelerating a virtuous circle of sustainable investments
- This move is also a confirmation of the Commission’s commitment to sustainable finance
- At the same time, it will help strengthen the role of the EU and of the euro in the sustainable finance markets
Most importantly, the NextGenerationEU green bonds will contribute to Europe’s green and sustainable recovery.
The Commission will use the green bonds to finance the climate-related reforms and investments in EU countries’ Recovery and Resilience Plans.
Examples include a research platform for energy transition in Belgium, a digitalisation of the production of car factories in Germany or the construction of wind power plants on land in Lithuania.
A minimum of 37% of every Recovery and Resilience Plan is devoted to the green transition, with many Member States striving to do more.
These are exactly the investments that will benefit from financing via the NextGenerationEU green bonds.
By providing funding through the NextGenerationEU green bonds and thanks to the state-of-the-art NextGenerationEU green bond framework, we will have a bullet-proof guarantee that all of these investments are truly green.
The tracking of these expenditures will be done by using EU climate coefficients, where expenditures are assigned a score (0%/40%/100%) based on their contribution to the green transition.
The green bond issuance programme is in line with Europe’s climate and sustainable agenda, but most importantly, this is exactly what our society needs and what our citizens expect us to do to make the EU fit for the future and protect the planet for the sake of future generations.
A green and sustainable recovery to the benefit o
