The EU pays nearly €10 billion solely in interest on the COVID recovery fund.

Omissions

• No source located publishes an explicit 'nearly €10 billion' annual interest figure for 2026; the closest quantified official-derived estimate is the European Court of Auditors' projection of around €93 billion of interest over seven years (≈€13 billion per year), which suggests the claim may be if anything on the low side for the coming years.
• Interest payments on NGEU borrowing are a rising annual flow (rates and maturing debt), not a fixed amount; the claim gives no reference year, which matters because the cost has climbed steeply since 2022 and is projected to keep rising.
• The claim concerns interest only and does not mention that principal repayment of the up to €712 billion borrowed for NGEU also falls on the EU budget, nor that part of the interest is financed through the dedicated 'EURI' special instrument rather than regular budget lines.
• The only source found that quantifies the interest burden is a secondary news report (Euronews, 2026-10-08) summarising an ECA report; the underlying ECA/Eurostat/Commission figure for a single year could not be retrieved within the search budget.

Sources

• PrimaryEuropean Commission — Questions and answers on the Draft Annual Budget 2027Commission Q&A refers to '... billion to cover the related debt service costs ... financing for the interest payments cannot be found within the existing EU budget', confirming that NGEU/RRF interest and debt-service costs are a large, growing and partly unfunded charge on the EU budget (exact annual interest amount not visible in the retrieved excerpt).
• SecondaryEuronews — 'EU debt could hit €1 trillion by 2027 as spending errors rise, auditors warn'Reporting on European Court of Auditors findings: 'interest alone could be around €93 billion over seven years, more than half the €168 billion total' (i.e. roughly €13 billion of interest per year in the projected debt-service period).
• SecondaryEuropean Parliamentary Research Service — Adoption of the European Union's 2025 budget'The EURI Special Instrument is mobilised for the first time, allocating an additional €1.14 billion to the budget line for the NGEU borrowing' — confirming that NGEU interest/borrowing costs are financed through a dedicated special instrument within the EU budget.