Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on borrowing and lending activities of the European Union in 2011

The Council Decisions establishing the various lending instruments of the European Union require the Commission to inform every year the European Parliament and the Council on the use of these instruments. In order to meet these information requirements, this report describes the lending operations for each instrument as well as the respective borrowing activities.

Lending activities:
Financial support for third countries and Member States is provided by the Commission under various Council Decisions, depending on the geographical areas concerned and the objectives pursued. They usually take the form of bilateral loans financed from the capital markets with the guarantee of the EU budget.

Borrowing activities:
In order to finance the lending activities decided by the Council, the Commission is empowered to borrow funds on the capital markets on behalf of both the European Union and Euratom. Borrowing and lending is conducted as a back to back operation, which ensures that the EU budget does not take any interest rate or foreign exchange risk. Outstanding borrowings are matched by outstanding loans.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)419: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:419:FIN

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