Keynote speech by Commissioner Piotr Serafin at the 8th Annual EC-EIB-ESM Capital Markets Seminar, 1 October 2026, Luxembourg

I want to start by welcoming you on behalf of the European Commission to the second day of this Seminar.

I am pleased to see that this Seminar remains a key forum bringing together private sector investors, the financial community, and the official sector.

And I would like to express my thanks to our partners – the European Investment Bank and the European Stability Mechanism – in making this gathering possible.

If I have to sum up our EU-bond issuance activities since last year, I would say that it has been a busy year, but also a rewarding year.

The global backdrop has again been challenging. Just think back to what has happened since we last met here in October 2025. The list of new challenges and perils is long: conflicts in the Middle East, an escalation of the war in Ukraine, increased security threats in Europe, renewed energy prices' and inflation hikes, further trade tensions, et cetera.

As mentioned by President Von der Leyen, in the cold fragility of today's world, only Europe can provide true sovereignty to Europeans.

And to do that, we obviously also need to bolster our capacity to act, including on the budgetary and financial front.

The developments of the last year show once again that borrowing has become one of the tools in our toolkit that we can use to respond to the challenges that we face.

Last year, I spoke about how the SAFE program would buttress our capacity to take more responsibility for our own security. I am pleased to see that the program has solicited a lot of interest, and is off to a strong start.

At the end of last year, our Member States entrusted us with another borrowing mandate, this time to support Ukraine.

Also this program is now up and running, thereby helping Ukraine to head off the relentless attacks by Russia.

These new borrowing mandates – together 240bn EUR – ensure that the EU will have a continued presence in the bond markets for decades to come.