In today's operation the Commisssion disbursed in total €13 billion to six EU Member States. Five other countries received funds: Czechia - €1 billion, Belgium - €2.2 billion, Spain - €4.06 billion, Italy - €1.87 billion and Poland - €1.4 billion. This is the the sixth instalment of financial support under SURE and the third disbursement in 2021.
These loans will assist Member States in addressing sudden increases in public expenditure to preserve employment. Specifically, they will help Member States cover the costs directly related to the financing of national short-time work schemes, and other similar measures that they have put in place as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, including for the self-employed. Today's disbursements follow the issuance of the sixth social bond under the EU SURE instrument, which attracted a considerable interest by investors.
So far, 17 EU Member States have received a total of €75.5 billion under the SURE instrument in back-to-back loans (link is external). An overview of the amounts disbursed up to date and the different maturities of the bonds are available online here (link is external).
Overall, the Commission has proposed that 19 EU countries will receive €94.3 billion in financial support under SURE. This figure includes the additional €3.7 billion proposed by the Commission today for six Member States (link is external). The full amounts per Member State are online here (link is external). Member States can still submit requests to receive financial support under SURE which has an overall firepower of up to €100 billion.
To address Member States' pending requests for 2021, the Commission will seek from the market further €13-€15 billion in the second quarter of 2021.
Later this year, the Commission is due to also launch the borrowing under NextGenerationEU, the recovery instrument of €750 billion to help build a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
Details
- Publication date
- 30 March 2021