According to a report published by the EU Council on Tuesday evening 18 September, the European institutions have made more money available than they pledged during the Syria conference last April (see EUROPE 12009).
In total, the European institutions have made $990 million available, compared with the $691 million pledged. Around $674 million of this $990 million has been committed, $108 million contracted and $208 million disbursed.
The EU and its member states have together made $3.218 billion available, although they pledged $3.04 billion ($858 million has been committed, $995 million contracted and $1.365 billion disbursed).
Until the end of July, donors on the global level had paid 95% of the funds pledged for 2018 as regards Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan – in other words, $4.1 billion of the $4.3 billion pledged. Five months after the conference, 14 of the 36 donors (including the EU, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic and Estonia) have reached or gone beyond the objectives of the amounts pledged. By contrast, Slovakia (which pledged €200,000) and Malta and Cyprus (which each pledged €100,000) have still not paid anything. The institutions are the second biggest donor after Germany (over $1.088 billion made available).
For the 2019-2020 period, 25% of the contributions announced ($875 million out of $3.5 billion) has been made available. For the moment, the EU institutions have not released anything for this period.
In addition, out of the loans, $16.2 billion has been made available in the host countries for refugee out of the $21.2 billion pledged for 2018-2020. The EBRD and EIB have together granted 88% of all the loans currently granted – in other words, $14.3 billion.
The inter-institutional intervention plans coordinated by the United Nations in 2018 for Syria and the region are only financed up to 38% ($3.424 billion out of $8.974 billion). "As a consequence, the humanitarian needs in Syria and in the region are still not met", the statement of the co-chairs of the Syria conference state.
The report can be consulted at: http://www.consilium.europa.eu//media/36437/syria-report-six.pdf (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)