Reda El-Mawi

In addition to the $2.7 billion pledged by the EU today, the European Investment Bank just announced it was allocating $1.5 billion to the neighboring countries. Other countries that are not part of the EU, like Britain, for example, the UK, pledged around £160 million for this year. Switzerland pledged 60 million Swiss francs or $68 million.

The World Bank as well mentioned the possibility of contributing up to $200 million. Is this enough to help rebuilding Syria in a meaningful way? No. The Secretary General of the UN, who was talking today, said that during 14 years of war, Syria's economy has lost an estimated of 800 billion in GDP.

Whole cities need to be rebuilt, whole economic sectors have been decimated, not only by the war, but also by the sanctions that were gradually imposed on Syria since the start of the war in 2011.

Assad al-Shibani commended the suspension of some sanctions on vital sectors such as energy and transportation. But he said these measures have yet to meet the aspirations of the Syrian people. He called the international community to continue lifting more economic sanctions on the country. And he described this as a humanitarian and moral necessity.

He also called on countries to contribute to their reconstruction efforts and also to encourage investment into Syria.

Yes, Gaia Kalas, the head of diplomacy in the EU, even before the conference, said some new sanctions might be imposed if the Syrian government doesn't conduct impartial and transparent investigation into these last events. But during the conference itself, there was not much mention about this. They indeed said it is very important that all parts of

Syrian society, ethnic groups and religious groups should be protected and should be also represented in future governments. They also mentioned about the importance of the return of many refugees in Europe to Syria.

So I sense that the EU also needs a stable Syrian government in order to tackle the problems back home in Europe, the refugee problems over there, a great number of refugees in countries like Germany, for example.