• The €8.5 billion is being issued under the emergency macro financial assistance (MFA) program put forward after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
• The Commission has now issued over €35 billion of green bonds under EU Member States’ Recovery and Resilience Plans
• Overall issuance exceeds €167 billion since June 2021

The European Commission has issued a further €8.5 billion, of which €6 billion through a NextGenerationEU green bond for its recovery programme and €2.5 billion to support Ukraine under the emergency MFA program put forward following Russia’s war of aggression against the country. The NextGenerationEU green bond has a 10-year maturity, due on 4 February 2033, and the MFA bond a 30-year maturity, due on 4 March 2053.

With today’s green bond, the Commission has issued a total of €35.5 billion of NextGenerationEU green bonds to finance green projects under EU Member States’ Recovery and Resilience plans.

Overall, the Commission has issued a total of €96.5 billion in long-term funding under NextGenerationEU in 2022 and €167.5 billion since the start of the programme in June 2021. Of this total, €46.5 billion have been issued since July 2022. This represents 93% of the Commission’s NextGenerationEU funding target for the second half of the year, with further transactions planned to year end as per the funding plan published in June 2022.

As regards the proceeds from the 30-year bond, they will be used to finance the latest instalment of macro-financial assistance (MFA) loans to Ukraine. So far in 2022, the Commission has raised €6.7 billion to finance MFA loans to Ukraine. Today’s transaction follows the disbursement of €1.2 billion in the first half of the year, €1 billion in August and €2 billion in October. A further €500 million is foreseen before year-end.

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Image source: European Commission

For 2023, once approved, the up to €18 billion support package the Commission proposed on 9 November 2022 will provide further highly concessional loans, to be disbursed in regular instalments. If the legislative package proposed on 09 November is adopted, the Commission will borrow on capital markets using the systems and processes that it uses to finance NextGenerationEU.

On this basis, the Commission has so far paid out nearly €136.55 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility and, as of end-June, over €15 billion under other EU programmes which benefit from NextGenerationEU financing. The Commission will continue to use the funds raised to support Europe’s post-pandemic recovery, financing Member States under the Recovery and Resilience Facility as well as via other EU programmes.  

Source: EU Commission