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European integration process is an expensive endeavor: i.e. quite often ambitious plans exceed available resources. Hence, the Commission, on behalf of the member states terns to borrowing on international capital markets. For 2025, the Commission anticipates issuing approximately €160 billion in EU bonds, ensuring consistent support for its borrowing-based programs.
Background
In order to implement various EU-wide integration programs, as well as regular yearly politico-economic priorities, the Commission borrows funds on international capital markets to acquire needed resources and disburses them to the EU member states and third countries. As a rule, the EU issues bonds for specific programs with the separate labels; however, since 2023, the Commission began issuing EU-Bonds under a single brand, i.e. through the so-called unified funding approach. The allocation of proceeds from these single-branded bonds is revealed in the applicable agreements for the relevant programs.
Presently, the stock of EU-Bonds now stands at over €580 billion, with more than €420 billion under the EU’s unified funding approach. The successful execution of EU issuances has been greatly aided by the growing market acceptance of EU-Bonds as large, liquid and high-quality assets. In October 2024, the EU took another significant step to support the social market economy system through the EU bonds (and secondary market liquidity) by opening the repurchase (repo) facility, which helps EU “primary dealers” post prices in the EU-bonds in support of their liquidity.
More on the issue in: “Recent EU-Bond issuance to support European integration”; source:
https://www.integrin.dk/2024/11/22/recent-eu-bond-issuance-to-support-european-integration/
Total funds raised in 2024
By early December 2024, a total of almost €330 billion of funds raised from borrowing operations have been disbursed under the NGEU programe. In 2024 the EU also borrowed to cover operations in financing Ukraine (under the Ukraine Facility with over €10 billion of funds which were disbursed this year), as well as the needs for an exceptional Macro-Financial assistance (MFA) loan by the EU member state s within the bloc’s agreement with G7 partners.
Additionally, new policies funded via the issuance of EU-Bonds were agreed upon to support candidate states under the Western Balkan Investment Facility, as well as supporting some neighboring countries, such as Egypt and Jordan.
The EU has also continued issuing EU-Bills on a regular basis, with maturities of three and six months, complementing long-term borrowing activities. The amount of short-term debt now stands at €25.3 billion.
While new net debt issuance for the largest borrowing-based program, such as NGEU program, will conclude by the end of 2026, the combination of refinancing maturing debt and bond-financing for other policies will ensure a strong EU market presence in the foreseeable future. The Commission will also continue issuing NGEU Green Bonds, which currently total €68 billion, to fund the green component of the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
Source: Commission press release in https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_6346
Citation
“The publication of the Funding Plan for the first half of 2025 underscores the critical role of EU borrowing in advancing EU priorities. These operations have become essential for enabling swift responses to emerging priorities and challenges. This highly efficient tool has consistently demonstrated its benefits for both EU member states and our neighborhood”.
Piotr Serafin, Commissioner for Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_6346
See also the latest Commission’s funding plan in: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/eu-borrower-investor-relations/funding-plans_en#latest-funding-plan