The European Union’s lending arm, the European Investment Bank, is to temporarily override its near 4-year long ban on financing in Turkey to provide 500 million euros ($540 million) for the country’s post-earthquake rebuilding efforts, transmits Reuters.
The EIB stopped virtually all lending in Turkey after a row over oil and gas drilling off Cyprus in 2019, but the severity of last month’s earthquake, which killed nearly 56,000 people in Turkey and neighbouring Syria, has prompted it to make an exception.
“We are working together with the European Commission on a joint comprehensive package, of which up to 500 million euros is to be delivered by the EIB,” the bank’s vice president, Lilyana Pavlova, said in a statement.
“We will shortly present it to our board of directors for approval.”
Speaking at an international donor conference, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said the overall package by the Commision and EIB would add up to 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).
