The European Union is committed to working with Syria's de facto government as it looks to rebuild and revive its economy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday, despite a recent eruption of violence casting doubt over the stability of the country's post-al-Assad transition.
On Monday, the Commission chief unveiled almost €2.5 billion in additional support for Syrians over the next two years. It will be channelled to support Syrians in their home country as well as those in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey.
The announcement came during an annual donor conference in which the Syrian government was represented for the first time by foreign minister Asaad al-Shibani.
The total pledged by the EU and its partners reached €5.8 billion.
The EU is "ready to do more to attract the necessary investments for reconstruction" as long as the de facto authorities in Damascus continue to transition towards a new Syria in which all strands of society are represented, von der Leyen said.
She described the signing of a transitional constitution last Thursday and the recent deal struck with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which control the resource-rich north-east of the country as "historic".
"In the past, we have always worked for Syria and for Syrians. But today, we can finally work with Syria."
The EU's support for the de facto authorities, led by former al-Qaeda commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, comes despite the eruption of brutal violence in Syria's north-western coastal regions just days ago.
Gunmen linked to al-Sharaa's Sunni Islamist-led government carried out the extrajudicial killing of as many as 1300 people in response to attacks by remnants of al-Assad’s force, according to war monitoring groups.
The UN has says "entire families", including civilian women and children, were killed in what appeared to be sectarian executions in predominantly Alawite areas.
The EU is backing calls for an independent probe to the killings, which al-Sharaa's transitional government has vowed to conduct.
EU hopes rest on de facto government
The bloc's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said earlier on Monday that the outbreak of violence is "worrying" and shows that "hope in Syria is really hanging by a thread".
The EU has already lifted a series of broad-ranging sanctions on key industries such as the energy, transport and financial sectors in a bid to help the war-torn country's economic recovery and reconstruction.
Kallas suggested on Monday that the bloc will continue to follow its roadmap to ease the pressure on Damascus despite recent violence exposing the country's volatility and fragility.
"This is our position right now: that we are helping Syria to also move further," she said. "Of course we want to see that the current leadership is (...) holding accountable those who were responsible for the violence, and we also want to see the inclusiveness of government build-up."
A senior EU official also suggested that the European Investment Bank (EIB) could have a role in funding the country's reconstruction. The UN says that widespread destruction after 14 years of civil war is hindering the country's recovery.
Speaking to Euronews, UN Under-Secretary-General Jorge Moreira da Silva said that in his recent visit to Syria he had witnessed "renewed hope" with "young generations wanting to take the future into their own hands."
"But I also saw a fragile situation, with extreme poverty, with infrastructure on the ground, massive destruction," he added. "So we need to mobilise ourselves at the internatonal level."
