Final adoption of EU external action budget for 2021-2027 8

nor room for complacency. Today, we are identifying specific areas where we already know more can and should be done to secure a more effective health response in the future. This crisis can be a catalyst for furthering European integration in the areas where it is most needed.” Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, said: “An unprecedented public health crisis needs to be turned into an opportunity to build back stronger. The key lesson learnt from the COVID-19 crisis is the need to transform the ad hoc solutions that were used to deal with the crisis into permanent structures that will allow us to be better prepared in the future. We need to have a strong European Health Union in place as soon as possible. Time cannot be lost when faced with a public health threat or another pandemic. Emergency action must become structural capacity. Solidarity, responsibility, common effort at European level for the threats that touch all of us equally is what will sustain us through this crisis and the next.”

Background

As the crisis started unfolding, the EU developed a wide range of health policy responses, exemplified by the common approach to vaccines through the EU Vaccines Strategy and initiatives across a range of other policies. The Green Lanes initiative kept food and medicines flowing throughout the Single Market. A common approach to assessing infection rates in different regions made testing and quarantining much more consistent. And more recently, EU Digital COVID Certificates were agreed on and implemented in record time, paving the way for the safe resumption of tourism and travel this summer, and beyond. At the same time, the EU took decisive action to tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic. This drew heavily on the experience and arrangements built to address previous challenges and crises in the economic and financial area. However, these successes do not mask the difficulties that were encountered, notably on the scaling up of manufacturing and production capacities, partly due to a lack of a permanently integrated approach to research, development and production that slowed down the initial availability of vaccines. While this has since been addressed, longer term solutions are needed for mitigating future detrimental health events or crises.

3. NextGenerationEU: raises €20 billion to support Europe's recovery

The European Commission has today, in its first NextGenerationEU transaction, raised a €20 billion via a ten-year bond due on 4 July 2031 to finance Europe's recovery from the coronavirus crisis and its consequences.

This is the largest-ever institutional bond issuance in Europe, the largest-ever institutional single tranche transaction and the largest amount the EU has raised in a single transaction. The bond has attracted a very strong interest by investors across Europe and the world, thanks to which the Commission has obtained very favourable pricing conditions, similarly to the repeatedly successful issuances under the SURE programme. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “Today is a truly historic day for our European Union. We successfully conducted the first funding operation for NextGenerationEU. As a strong Union, we are raising money at the markets together and investing in a common recovery from this crisis. It is an investment in our single market. And even more importantly, it is an investment in the future of Europe's next generations as they face the challenges of digitisation and climate change. Money can now start flowing to help reshaping our continent, to build a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe. I will now visit every Member State, to see NextGenerationEU impact on the ground.” Commissioner in charge of Budget and Administration, Johannes Hahn, said: “Today, we have reached a key milestone in implementing NextGenerationEU. After laying all the foundation at record speed, we have today successfully conducted the first borrowing operation under the Recovery Plan. This is just a very first step of a long journey, bringing over €800 billion in current prices into the EU economy. NextGenerationEU has now become a reality and is set to drive our collective recovery from the pandemic, setting Europe on a green, digital and resilient path.” The funds will now be used for the first payments under NextGenerationEU, under the Recovery and Resilience Facility and various EU budget programmes. By the end of 2021, the Commission expects to raise some €80 billion in bonds, to be complemented by short-term EU-Bills, as per the funding plan published in June 2021. The exact amount of both EU-Bonds and EU-Bills will