European Commission welcomes ECB decision to assign EU-Bonds the same liquidity level as government bonds

The European Commission welcomes the decision of the European Central Bank to be treating EU-Bonds in the same way as bonds issued by central governments and central banks under its risk control framework.

More concretely, as of 29 June 2023, EU-Bonds will be part of haircut category I – instead of current haircut category II – in the ECB's risk control framework.

With this, EU debt will receive the same lower haircuts like debt instruments issued by central governments in the ECB's collateralised credit operations. As a result, it will become cheaper to use EU debt in refinancing operations with the ECB, and there will be no additional costs compared to the use of sovereign debt.

The ECB decision reflects the increased liquidity of EU securities as a result of issuances under its flagship programmes NextGenerationEU and SURE.