In 2020, the Commission´s nearly €100 billion SURE instrument designed to protect jobs and incomes affected by the COVID-19 pandemic supported about 31.5 million employees and self-employed people and over 2.5 million businesses. SURE effectively encouraged Member States to set up wide-ranging and ambitious short-time work schemes and similar measures at national level, which allowed firms to retain employees and skills, and supported the self-employed.

Today's final bi-annual report on the implementation and impact of the SURE instrument shows that it was crucial in both mitigating the impact of the pandemic in 2020 and facilitating the swift economic rebound in 2021, which was faster than in previous crises. SURE – the European instrument for temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency – ended on 31 December 2022.

Overall, a total of €98.4 billion of SURE financial assistance was disbursed to 19 Member States (i.e.  Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Czechia), close to the maximum SURE envelope of €100 billion. This included additional ‘top-up' financial assistance of €5 billion that was granted to eight Member States in autumn 2022. Careful monitoring continued in the first months of 2023 to ensure the absorption of all SURE financial assistance, which is now confirmed. To finance the instrument, the Commission issued social bonds on behalf of the EU, becoming the world's largest social bond issuer.