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Luxembourg – The European Financial Stability Facility (“EFSF”) has mandated BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs International and Royal Bank of Scotland as joint lead managers for its expected €3 billion 5-year issue for Portugal due to be launched shortly, subject to market conditions. The three institutions were selected from the 46 banks that comprise the EFSF Market Group.

Luxembourg – European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) today placed a €5 billion bond with a 10 year maturity to fund the EFSF’s first disbursement as part of the financial assistance package to Portugal.

Christophe Frankel, CFO and Deputy CEO, commented: “The size of the order book and the final pricing highlight the strong market demand for quality issuers such as EFSF. It also underlines EFSF’s ambition to ensure investors see performance from their investment.”

Luxembourg – The European Financial Stability Facility (“EFSF”) announces the appointment of Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and HSBC as joint lead managers for its second issue due to be launched later this month, subject to market conditions. The three institutions were selected from the 46 banks that comprise the EFSF Market Group.

Christophe Frankel, Deputy CEO and CFO of EFSF commented “the lead managers were appointed following a rigourous and transparent selection process held in collaboration with the German Debt Management office (Finanzagentur)”.

Luxemburg/Brussels - Following the formal request for financial assistance made on 7 April 2011 by the Portuguese authorities, the terms and conditions of the financial assistance package were agreed by the Eurogroup and the EU's Council of Economics and Finance Ministers on 17 May1. The financial package will cover Portugal’s financing needs of up to €78 billion.

Letter to Editor of Financial Times

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Sir,

Frankfurt am Main – European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) today placed its inaugural bond for an amount of €5 billion as part of the EU/IMF financial support package agreed for Ireland. The issuance spread was fixed at mid-swap plus 6 basis points. This implies borrowing costs for EFSF of 2.89%. Investor interest was exceptionally strong, a record breaking order book of €44.5 billion from more than 500 investors. Investor demand came from around the world and from all types of institutions. Very strong demand came from Asia.

Luxembourg – All three major credit rating agencies have today assigned the best possible credit rating - Standard & Poor’s “AAA”, Moody’s “Aaa” and Fitch Ratings “AAA” - to the European Financial Stability Facility’s (EFSF) bond issuance programme.

On 17th January 2011, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) announced that Citi, HSBC, and Société Générale are mandated as joint lead managers for its inaugural issue to be launched later this month subject to market conditions. The three institutions were chosen from the 44 banks that make up the EFSF Market Group. Klaus Regling, CEO of EFSF highlighted “the first EFSF issue is an important transaction for markets and for the euro zone.

The European Union (EU), under the auspices of the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM), and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF,) have finalised their issuance calendars to raise funds to provide financial support to Ireland. The calendars have been closely coordinated between the EU and the EFSF. This will ensure smooth market operations over the entire duration of the support programme. The EU intends to launch a first bond at the beginning of January. The EFSF is expected to follow with its first bond issue towards the end of January.

Luxembourg – Belgium, Slovakia and Slovenia recently confirmed commitment to the EFSF framework agreement and authorization of the agreement under its national laws. Following the EFSF Board of Directors on Friday 3 December all remaining issues have been cleared. All 16 Member States of the euro area have now signed up and are thus full EFSF members. Klaus Regling, Chief Executive Officer of the EFSF commented: “I welcome that all 16 euro area Member States have concluded their legal processes.