Half-yearly report on H1 2023 debt management operations and overarching debt management strategy - European Commission Skip to main content
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  • News article
  • 2 August 2023
  • Brussels
  • 1 min read

Half-yearly report on H1 2023 debt management operations and overarching debt management strategy

The Commission has published its fourth half-yearly report on the debt management operations it conducts to finance the EU’s borrowing and lending programmes, covering the period January–June 2023.

These were the first six months in which the Commission used the diversified funding strategy - that was developed in 2021 to finance NextGenerationEU – to also fund other programmes, hence creating a unified funding approach for all the EU’s borrowing and lending programmes.

The report shows that during the first six months of 2023, the unified funding approach enabled the Commission to raise close to EUR 80 billion for NextGenerationEU and MFA+ for Ukraine at rates commensurate to its standing in the market. In this period market volatility remained high. Nevertheless, EU bond issuances continued to be met with strong and steady investor demand.

The report also sets out the steps that the Commission is taking to further develop the ecosystem of EU-Bonds in order to enhance the liquidity of EU-Bonds. The Commission will amongst others introduce a quoting arrangement framework in Q4 2023, launch the EU issuance service in January 2024, and establish a repurchase facility by mid-2024. These steps should help to facilitate a market treatment of EU-Bonds that reflects the EU’s issuance volumes and credit strength. Finally, the half-yearly report provides an outlook for EU-Bond issuance in the second half of 2023.

The annex of the half-yearly report presents the overarching debt management strategy which guides the Commission in the implementation of the unified funding strategy, along with the indicators that the Commission will use to monitor its implementation. This strategy has been formulated by the Commission in response to the recommendation of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) calling for the formulation of such a strategy and the specification of indicators that can be used to monitor its implementation (further information on the ECA report confirming the Commission’s handling of borrowing operations can be found here).

The Commission's half-yearly report on the debt management operations is available here.

Details

Publication date
2 August 2023
Department
Directorate-General for Budget
Location
Brussels