EU disburses EUR 14 bn to help fight social impact of Covid
Image by Gerd Altmann - Pixabay
(BRUSSELS) - The EU Commission disbursed EUR 14 billion to nine Member States Tuesday in the fourth instalment of financial support to Member States to help alleviate the social impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The disbursement forms part of the EU's EUR 100 billion SURE programme of loans for Member States to save jobs and keep people in work.
As part of today's operations, Belgium has received €2 billion, Cyprus €229 million, Hungary €304 million, Latvia €72 million, Poland €4.28 billion, Slovenia €913 million, Spain €1.03 billion, Greece €728 million and Italy €4.45 billion.
All nine Member States had already received financial support under SURE in 2020, under one of the first three issuances and disbursement operations that took place in 2020.
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 fourth social bond under the EU SURE instrument, which attracted a considerable interest by investors. The notable oversubscription was translated into favourable pricing terms, which the Commission is directly passing on to the benefiting Member States.
An overview of the amounts disbursed so far and the different maturities of the bonds are available online here.
The bonds issued by the EU under SURE benefit from a social bond label. This provides investors in these bonds with confidence that the funds mobilised will serve a truly social objective.