The European Commission has today disbursed €14.137 billion to 12 EU Member States in the seventh instalment of financial support under the Support to Mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) scheme.

These SURE loans will assist Member States in addressing sudden increases in public expenditure to preserve employment following the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, they will help Member States cover the costs directly related to the financing of national short-term 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 seventh social bond under the EU SURE instrument, which attracted a considerable interest by investors amid challenging market conditions in recent days.

With this SURE disbursement, the EU has provided nearly €90 billion in back-to-back loans. All EU Member States which have asked to benefit from the scheme have received part or all of the requested amount.

Overall, 19 EU Member States are due to receive a total of €94.3 billion in financial support under SURE, following approval by the Council of the European Union based on a Commission proposal. Countries can still submit requests to receive financial support under SURE which has an overall firepower of up to €100 billion and is available until the end of 2022.

Commenting on the funding, President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said, ‘With today‘s disbursement, Bulgaria and Estonia will receive money for the first time and ten other countries will get additional support. SURE is a European success story and has benefitted up to a total of 30 million workers and 2.5 million firms so far. It will also help them recover faster from the pandemic. With the SURE programme, the EU has already provided a total of around €90 billion to 19 Member States.’

The countries to benefit from today’s funding tranche include Belgium which has received €2 billion, Bulgaria €511 million, Cyprus €124 million, Greece €2.54 billion, Spain €3.37 billion, Italy €751 million, Lithuania €355 million, Latvia €113 million, Malta €177 million, Poland €1.56 billion, Portugal €2.41 billion and Estonia €230 million.

This is the first time that Bulgaria and Estonia are receiving funding under the instrument. The other ten EU countries have already benefitted from loans under SURE.

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