At the EU Western Balkans Summit held in Tirana, Albania, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Lilyana Pavlova pledged support to the region to cope with urgent short-term needs stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine. This support will come from EIB Global, the arm of the Bank focused on operations outside the European Union, in the form of new projects that it plans to finance in the region to deploy clean energy, expand electricity networks and storage infrastructure, and help the private sector implement energy efficiency measures. She confirmed that the Bank is fully aligned with the €1 billion energy support package announced by the European Commission and plans to play a key role in its implementation.

In addition to support in the energy field, the EU bank will enhance its comprehensive mix of lending, blending and advisory services and deploy more experts on the ground to support connectivity, the green and digital transition, education and healthcare. Promoting the growth, digitalisation and decarbonisation of the private sector will also be a priority for the Bank. As part of this, the European Investment Fund (EIF), a subsidiary of the EIB Group, has launched the Western Balkans Enterprise Development and Innovation Facility (WB EDIF) Guarantee 4 SME Resilience, which aims to respond to the economic difficulties by increasing access to finance for some 4 000 small and medium-sized enterprises in the region.