European Commission disburses 13 billion euros under SURE to six Member States
The European Commission has disbursed €13 billion to six EU Member States in the sixth instalment of financial support under the Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) instrument.
Helping Member States through COVID-19
As part of SURE, Czechia has received €1 billion, Belgium €2.2 billion, Spain €4.06 billion, Ireland €2.47 billion, Italy €1.87 billion and Poland €1.4 billion. This is the first time that Ireland has received funding under the instrument. The other five EU countries have already benefitted from loans under SURE.
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.
So far, 17 EU Member States have received a total of €75.5 billion under the SURE instrument in back-to-back loans. An up-to-date overview of the amounts disbursed and the different maturities of the bonds are available online here.
Overall, the Commission has proposed that 19 EU countries receive €94.3 billion in financial support under SURE. This figure includes an additional €3.7 billion proposed by the Commission for six Member States. The full amounts per Member State can be found online here. 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 a further €13-€15 billion from the market in the second quarter of 2021.
Later this year, the Commission is due to launch the borrowing under NextGenerationEU, the recovery instrument of €750 billion to help build a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
President Ursula von der Leyen said: “The crisis is tough on many workers, who fear for their jobs. This is why we have created SURE, to mobilise €100 billion in loans to finance short-time work schemes across the EU. Today we are disbursing a new tranche of €13 billion under SURE, supporting workers and companies in six Member States. This helps protect jobs and enables economies to recover faster from the crisis.”
Find out more here.
