EU to hold donors’ conference for quake-hit Türkiye, Syria

SERKAN DEMİRTAŞ-ANKARA/BRUSSELS

A donors’ conference to be jointly organized by the EU Commission and EU’s term president, Sweden, will be launched on March 20 in Brussels to get pledges from the international institutions, financial bodies, countries and other relevant institutions for Türkiye and Syria, which have been severely hit by the earthquakes of Feb. 6.

The donors’ conference will be opened by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will address the conference online.

It will seek coordinated action and financial assistance to both Türkiye and Syria, where tens of thousands of people were killed and a score of cities were destroyed. Recovery and reconstruction of the cities in Türkiye are estimated to cost around $100 billion.

According to the sources, the conference will just be the beginning of the EU’s long-term assistance to earthquake-hit Türkiye. Apart from earthquake assistance, Brussels is planning to reorient already existing funds for Türkiye under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) and refugee funds.

The second session of the conference will focus on the earthquake impact and recovery vision in which European Commissioner Janez Lenarcic and U.N. Development Program Administrator Achim Steiner will make presentations on the developments concerning Türkiye. El-Mostafa Benlamlih, U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator, will make a presentation about the preliminary damage assessments in Syria.

A joint presentation by the Presidency for Strategy and Budget of Türkiye, the UNDP and the World Bank of the preliminary damage assessment in Türkiye and the recovery vision will be made during this session.

Next will be the pledging session, which will be co-chaired by Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Johan Forssell and European Commissioner Oliver Vaarhelyi. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will also address the session. The conference will be closed by Leyen and Kristersson.

Some institutions have already announced their plans to invest in Türkiye’s earthquake-hit region. In a statement last week, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced it will invest up to $1.6 billion in southern Türkiye over the next two years.

The World Bank had announced $1.78 billion in assistance to help in relief and recovery efforts following devastating earthquakes and aftershocks in Türkiye. The European Investment Bank will also attend the conference.