The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has launched a conflict response package targeting economies directly affected by the war in the Middle East, aiming to deploy €5 billion in investments across the region in 2026, according to an EBRD announcement. The response covers Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and the West Bank and Gaza, as well as neighbouring countries facing wider spillover effects — including Egypt, Türkiye, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Disrupted trade routes, energy and commodity shocks, weakened investor confidence, and mounting costs to ordinary people are already visible across many of the Bank’s economies of operation.
The response is structured in two phases: providing immediate relief to stabilize economic activity and essential services, and then laying the groundwork for sustainable recovery. On energy, the EBRD will deliver targeted liquidity support to utilities in the short term while accelerating the shift toward more diversified and domestically anchored energy systems over time. Support to state-owned enterprises will help ensure the uninterrupted delivery of essential goods and services, alongside longer-term work on economic governance and resilience. EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso said the Bank is “stepping up where others may pull back, while maintaining sound banking fundamentals.”
In the private sector, the EBRD will provide working capital and liquidity to help businesses absorb market volatility — particularly in energy markets and agri-food value chains. The Bank’s board has already approved a project to support Lebanon’s leading retail chain, signaling that the response is moving quickly from announcement to action. Longer-term investments will focus on infrastructure, trade connectivity, food security, and digital solutions. Throughout, the Bank says it will keep people at the center — protecting jobs, access to finance, and essential services for vulnerable groups.
The EBRD will coordinate closely with governments, donors, and other international financial institutions, and will seek to mobilize additional donor support to help affected economies weather the crisis. The Bank brings considerable experience to this effort: since starting operations in the southern and eastern Mediterranean in 2012, it has invested more than €26.5 billion across 489 projects in the region, with Türkiye alone receiving over €23 billion in commitments since 2009.
