EU bonds perform, even after €30bn rise to annual issuance ceiling for 2026

Bank organisation's president Kevin Reed had lobbied Canadian politicians to be home for new supranational

We are proud to publish our special report, which looks ahead to 2026 across all asset classes and recognises the best new bonds of 2025

Tight funding levels and an abundance of investor cash made for brisk MTN issuance in 2025. The story may change in 2026, with public market issuance named as one factor that could crowd out private placements. But a broadening Asian bid for MTNs offers hope for the market, writes Diana Bui

One of the key numbers for the SSA bond market is the EU’s borrowing need, published twice a year. The borrower has become one of the largest in the market, issuing €160bn of bonds in 2025, with a similar amount expected in 2026. It anticipates €700bn of funding needs between 2025 and 2030 in support of the various programmes it funds, including for NextGenerationEU. Now it has a new one: a €150bn instrument, which will disburse money to member states for defence in 2026. Siegfried Ruhl (pictured), 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.

The public sector bond market digested more than $900bn of benchmark syndications in the first 10 months of 2025, close to the amount raised the previous year. New issue premiums varied by currency, with the biggest annual change in the euro market, writes Sarah Ainsworth