EIB Vice-President Lilyana Pavlova at the Berlin Process Summit for the Western Balkans

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the EU Climate Bank, EIB welcomes the commitment shown here today to leverage regional cooperation and EU solidarity to boost energy security and green transition.  Russia’s aggressive war in Ukraine that has upended energy and food markets, triggering heightened price volatility and energy insecurity, means that such reforms are more urgent than ever.

Diversifying your energy mix and increasing the resilience of the region to climate change will bring great benefits to citizens.  However, it will not happen overnight, nor will it be easy. As the EU Bank and partner of the Berlin Process, the European Investment Bank will accompany you on this journey.

In May 2022, the EU’s announcement on boosting engagement on energy with third countries repeatedly referred to the Western Balkans, including pledges to speed up renewables’ deployment, ensure a green energy transition and help reduce dependency on Russian gas. Today, President von der Leyen has outlined further evidence of EU solidarity with an impressive energy package.

EIB is fully committed to boosting clean energy financing in the EU and beyond, via our dedicated structure, EIB Global.  In the Western Balkans we will intensify further our comprehensive mix of lending, blending and advisory services to support your efforts, including with more experts on the ground. As always, we will adopt a Team Europe approach alongside partners such as the EC, EBRD and KfW.

We will work with you to tap the substantial potential for wind and solar energy.  We will assist you make more effective investments in electricity networks and storage infrastructure.  You can rely on EIB to ensure that energy efficiency is an integral part of all our investments in transport, urban development, housing, waste management or private sector development.   

The next step is implementation.  The speed and precision with which you implement the agreements you have reached at this summit today on energy and the green transition - and on greater mobility to enhance your common regional market – will determine how quickly benefits can accrue to citizens.

Last but not least, EIB is also conscious of the social and economic costs of transitioning away from fossil fuel. We will continue providing our support for a just transition both via financing and advisory services. One of the current instruments of which the EIB is a member is the EC-led Initiative for coal regions in transition in the Western Balkans and Ukraine.

The challenge is enormous but, as the Berlin Process has already demonstrated on the connectivity agenda – we will meet this challenge together.