Special report 16/2023 NGEU debt management at the Commission – An encouraging start, but further alignment with best practice needed

The NextGenerationEU programme provides grants and loans to member states to support their economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Commission will fund the programme by issuing up to €807 billion in EU bonds on the capital markets. We analysed whether the Commission had developed effective systems to manage the debt raised to finance NextGenerationEU. We found that the Commission had established the funding strategy and the organisational arrangements quickly, which had allowed the required funds to be made available in a timely manner. However, the rapidly built debt management capacities need adjustment to be in line with established best practice. The Commission did not concentrate enough on setting strategic objectives and measuring and reporting on performance in debt management. We make various recommendations to address these issues.