Von der Leyen says NextGenerationEU is becoming a reality, as first bond is issued

The European Commission has on 15 June reached a key milestone in the implementation of its temporary recovery instrument, the NextGenerationEU, with the issuance of the first ten-year bond.

NextGenerationEU is a EUR 750 billion recovery instrument that aims to repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. It is meant to help build a greener, more digital, more resilient Europe, that is better fit for the current and forthcoming challenges.

“To fund NextGenerationEU, we have agreed that the Commission will raise the necessary capital on the market. And today, we have successfully conducted the first issuance operation for NextGenerationEU”, said Ursula von der Leyen i, the President of the Commission. She announced that the Commission had raised EUR 20 billion in the capital markets by issuing a ten-year bond, the largest ever institutional bond issuance in Europe.

She said that the Commission expected to have issued by the end of this year around EUR 100 billion in bonds and bills. “This will enable us to fund all planned grants and loans for Member States this year. NextGenerationEU is a huge opportunity for us. We need to invest this money well, to make the best out of it.”

President von der Leyen also announced she would travel to Member States in the coming weeks, with first visits planned to Portugal, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Luxembourg. This follows intense dialogues with national governments, and the completion of Commission's assessment of national recovery and resilience plans.

“We have to launch the transformation of our economies”, von der Leyen stressed, adding that we had to make sure that the plans are in line with European priorities and that the implementation of these ambitious goals takes place. “We want the best value for our economies, but we want also the best value for our citizens”, she concluded.