SSA Roundtable and EU Interview (December 2025)

Chief among the issues facing public sector issuers for 2026 is the tightness of spreads to government bonds but there are others: further elevated government borrowing to fund defence and possibly even a new entrant to the market to raise money for that purpose; the evolving market for ESG investment; digitalisation of the bond market; and the rotation out of US Treasury holdings by international investors. GlobalCapital gathered a number of the SSA market’s key issuers in London in November to discuss how they will set about meeting these challenges.

Andreas Becker, head of treasury and pension fund, Ministry of Finance of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

Henry Coyle, senior financial officer, World Bank

Francis Dassyras, team lead – funding, European Stability Mechanism/European Financial Stability Facility

Jörg Graupner, senior funding manager, KfW

Antti Kontio, vice-president, head of funding and sustainability, MuniFin

Ales Koutny, head of international rates, Vanguard

Jong Woo Nam, senior financial officer, World Bank

Sebastien Rosset, senior funding officer, European Investment Bank

Patrick Seifert, managing director, global head of corporates and DCM, LBBW

Moderator: Ralph Sinclair, chief product officer, GlobalCapital

Siegfried Ruhl, hors classe adviser to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Budget and Balazs Ujvari, Commission spokesperson for budget and administration spoke to GlobalCapital’s Ralph Sinclair about the issuer’s path ahead in the bond market.