Executive Summary

Syria’s electricity sector is entering a new phase in which private investors may participate in the construction and operation of power plants. This development has sparked public concern that the introduction of private generation could lead to higher electricity prices or allow private firms to exercise excessive market power.

This policy paper argues that private participation in electricity generation does not inherently lead to higher prices. On the contrary, if new plants operate more efficiently than existing facilities, their introduction can reduce the overall cost of electricity generation and improve supply reliability. Such benefits, however, depend on the strength of the regulatory and procurement framework. Transparent dispatch rules, well-designed power purchase agreements, and effective oversight are essential to ensure that private participation helps expand electricity supply without increasing costs.

As such, the central policy question for Syria is not whether electricity generation should be public or private, but whether the institutional framework governing the sector ensures that all generators, whether public or private, operate efficiently and in the public interest.

Syria’s Electricity Crisis and the Need for Investment

Syria’s electricity sector has experienced a severe deterioration in generation capacity since 2011, driven by infrastructure damage, fuel shortages, aging power plants, and limited maintenance. Over more than a decade of conflict, large portions of the country’s power infrastructure were damaged or destroyed. Current generation capacity went from 9,838 MW in 2011 to 5,403 MW in 2023. This loss in generation capacity is broken down into about 1,771 MW (18% of 2011 capacity) being totally destroyed, and many other plants requiring major repair.1 Still, fuel constraints have reduced the country’s available generation capacity to around 1,800 MW in 2024, less than one-fifth (18%) of the capacity in 2011.

As a result, national electricity generation has declined dramatically. Total electricity production fell from approximately 49,260 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 20112 to around 16,454 GWh in 2024 (-67%).3 At the same time, technical losses in the network increased, going from about 26% in 2011 to 33% today. These losses reflect both physical damage to the transmission and distribution system and operational challenges, including maintenance deficits and electricity theft.

This state of play has left Syrians with only a few hours of electricity per day, pushing households and businesses to resort to alternative coping mechanisms, generally involving expensive off-grid solutions, such as privately operated diesel generators. These generators supply electricity through neighborhood micro-grids at extremely high prices, sometimes reaching ten times the estimated grid supply cost.

The relevant consumer comparison is therefore not only between state-owned and privately financed grid generation. In much of Syria, households and businesses already rely on private diesel generators, solar systems, batteries, and other off-grid solutions. These are often far more expensive than formal grid electricity. If private investment helps restore a reliable grid supply and displaces informal diesel generation, households may experience lower effective electricity costs even if official grid tariffs rise from their historically subsidized levels.

Recognizing electricity as a cornerstone of economic recovery, Syria’s interim authorities have prioritized the rehabilitation of the power sector, combining short-term fuel supply arrangements with longer-term infrastructure investment.

In the short term, authorities have sought to increase generation by securing natural gas imports from regional partners, including Qatar and Türkiye. Qatar had agreed to supply gas through Jordan to fuel the Deir Ali power plant, potentially generating about 400 MW of additional electricity, while Türkiye had arranged deliveries of roughly 6 million cubic meters of gas per day, enough to generate around 1,200 MW in Syrian power plants. These fuel imports were intended to temporarily raise generation and extend daily electricity supply, although they remain insufficient to restore pre-war output given the destruction of infrastructure and the limited operational capacity of many plants.

At the same time, the government is attempting to address the structural supply gap through large-scale investment projects. The most prominent initiative is a USD 7 billion memorandum of understanding signed in May 2025 with an international consortium led by Qatar’s UCC Holding, alongside Türkiye’s Kalyon Enerji and Cengiz Enerji, and supported by U.S.-based Power International Holding (PIH). The agreement initially outlined the construction of four combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants with a total capacity of around 4,000 MW, together with a 1,000 MW solar project. In November 2025, the Syrian Ministry of Energy and the consortium signed the final concession agreements, allowing the projects to move toward implementation. The contracts provide for the construction of four large natural-gas-fired combined-cycle plants located in North Aleppo (1,200 MW), Deir Ez-Zor (1,000 MW), Zeyzoun (1,000 MW), and Mhardeh (800 MW), as well as four solar projects totaling 1,000 MW distributed across several regions.

It should be noted, however, that the contractual structure and pricing arrangements of these projects remain unclear. This has led to speculation about the future of the country’s electricity sector, with the emergence of private investment sparking public debate.

Even if new private plants produce electricity cheaply, their effect on consumer supply will remain limited unless transmission and distribution bottlenecks are addressed. Syria’s electricity crisis is therefore not only a generation crisis, but it is also a grid crisis. Damaged transmission lines, substations, distribution losses, theft, and limited system control can prevent low-cost generation from reaching consumers. In that context, generation investment and grid rehabilitation must be treated as complementary, not interchangeable.

Historically, Syria’s electricity system has been organized around vertically integrated public entities responsible for generation, transmission, and distribution. Electricity dispatch is coordinated centrally through the national control center, while the Public Establishment for Transmission and Distribution of Electricity (PETDE) acts as the system operator and effectively functions as a single buyer procuring electricity from generators and supplying it to distribution networks and major consumers, as per Legislative Decree No. 9 of 2020.

In such a system, concerns about generator pricing power are limited when generation assets are entirely state-owned. However, as privately owned power plants enter the system, questions may arise about how electricity will be priced and how potential market power will be regulated. It should be noted that although private participation in electricity generation is now becoming politically and commercially more significant, the legal opening is not entirely new. Law No. 32 of 2010 already allowed domestic and foreign private investment in generation and distribution. What is new is the scale, urgency, and strategic importance of private generation in the post-2024 recovery context.

Understanding whether these concerns are economically justified requires examining how electricity costs are actually determined within power systems. In practice, the cost of supplying electricity is primarily driven by generation costs and dispatch decisions, rather than by whether generation assets are publicly or privately owned. In systems where electricity is procured through centralized dispatch or long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), the relevant comparison is between the cost of electricity supplied by different power plants within the generation fleet. This distinction is central to assessing the potential impact of new private investments in Syria’s electricity sector.

Understanding Electricity Pricing: Marginal Cost and the Merit Order

Even in centrally dispatched electricity systems such as Syria’s, system operators typically schedule power plants according to their operating costs. In practice, plants with lower operating costs are dispatched first, while higher-cost plants are brought online only when demand exceeds the capacity of cheaper generators.

This operational logic is commonly referred to as the merit order. Under the merit order, generators are ranked from lowest to highest marginal cost of production, meaning the cost of producing one additional unit of electricity. As electricity demand rises, the system operator progressively dispatches plants along this cost curve until total supply meets demand.

In Syria’s electricity sector, new private generators are likely to sell electricity to the state through long-term PPAs with the PETDE. Under such arrangements, the state commits to purchasing electricity at a predetermined tariff, typically expressed in USD/MWh.4 The economic impact of such contracts depends largely on how the PPA tariff compares to the marginal cost of existing power plants in the national generation fleet.

To illustrate this principle, consider three hypothetical power plants that generate the same amount of electricity with marginal production costs of $40, $60, and $80 per MWh. If electricity demand is high enough that all three plants must operate, the system operator must dispatch the most expensive plant in order to meet demand. In that case, the state’s average electricity generation cost would be $60/MWh. During periods of lower demand, however, the system may only require the two cheaper plants. In that situation, the average cost of electricity generation falls to $50/MWh, since the $80 plant is no longer needed.

The fiscal implications are straightforward. If electricity tariffs are set below the actual cost of production, the government absorbs the difference through subsidies. The more expensive the plants that must be dispatched to meet demand, the higher the average cost of electricity generation and, therefore, the greater the fiscal burden on the state. Conversely, if electricity tariffs reflect production costs, as seems to be the current government’s aim, a lower generation cost will translate into lower electricity bills for consumers.

Now consider adding a new, more efficient power plant that can produce electricity at $20/MWh under a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the state. Because this plant produces electricity at a lower cost than the existing generators, it would be dispatched first. As a result, more expensive plants would be pushed further down the merit order, and the $80/MWh plant might no longer be required to operate during periods of high demand. In that case, electricity would be generated by the $20, $40, and $60 plants, bringing the average electricity generation cost down to $40/MWh. By reducing the need to run the most expensive generators, the new plant would lower the overall cost of electricity supply and reduce the government’s fiscal burden and consumers’ electricity bills.

Illustrative electricity supply and demand curves. The addition of large-scale, efficient generation shifts the supply curve outward, lowering generation costs at a given level of demand. In this example, at a demand level of 4,000 MW, the introduction of a new power plant reduces the market price from P1 to P0. At a demand level of 7,000 MW, the price would also fall significantly, as power plants producing at price levels P1 and P2 would no longer need to be dispatched.

Of course, the magnitude of these savings ultimately depends on the terms of the PPA and the efficiency of the new plant, which determine whether the contracted tariff is actually lower than the cost of existing generation.

Building a more efficient plant should not be difficult in Syria, as the country’s generation fleet is largely composed of aging thermal power plants with widely varying efficiency levels. Indeed, older steam units and simple-cycle gas turbines, which account for a large share of Syria’s installed thermal capacity (see table above), consume significantly more fuel per unit of electricity than modern CCGT plants, the technology planned for the new facilities to be developed by the consortium.

Risks and Opportunities: Market Power and Regulatory Oversight

In the context of electricity sector reform, there may be concerns about private generators, given the possibility that a dominant firm could abuse its market position to raise electricity prices.

Indeed, electricity systems are often considered vulnerable to market power: firms can influence prices because demand is relatively inelastic in the short term, supply must match demand at all times, and generation capacity may be limited during peak periods. In fully liberalized electricity markets, these characteristics can allow generators to influence prices by withholding capacity or strategically bidding above their marginal costs.

However, Syria’s electricity system is unlikely to operate as a competitive wholesale electricity market in the near term. Instead, electricity from privately financed plants will most likely be procured by the state through long-term PPAs within a centralized single-buyer system.

In such systems, the primary risk is not real-time price manipulation but rather the possibility that electricity procurement contracts are poorly structured or negotiated at excessively high tariffs. If governments sign PPAs with prices that exceed the cost of existing or alternative generation options, the overall cost of electricity supply might not be as low as it could be, even if the private plants themselves operate efficiently.

These risks can take several forms:

• capacity payments: Many PPAs include payments for availability or capacity, not only for the electricity actually generated. The state may therefore pay even when the plant is not fully dispatched.

• take-or-pay obligations: The public buyer may be required to pay for a minimum quantity of electricity or plant availability regardless of actual system demand.

• currency risk: If the PPA is denominated in USD while consumers pay in Syrian pounds, the government carries exchange-rate risk.

• sovereign guarantees: Investors may require state guarantees if PETDE or the relevant public utility is not considered sufficiently creditworthy.

For this reason, the key policy challenge is to maintain a robust regulatory and procurement framework governing the sector. Governments typically rely on several mechanisms to ensure that private participation remains aligned with the public interest:

• transparent procurement processes, such as competitive tenders, which allow governments to benchmark electricity prices and select the most cost-effective projects;

• contractual performance obligations, including availability requirements and penalties for unjustified outages;

• regulatory oversight and monitoring, allowing authorities to review generator performance and ensure compliance with contractual obligations.

• well-designed PPAs, which define tariff formulas, payment structures, and operational responsibilities.

Under such conditions, private participation is most likely to lead to an expansion of generation capacity without necessarily increasing electricity supply costs.

In the Syrian context, new privately financed power plants could reduce electricity generation costs, particularly if they introduce, as promised, newer, more efficient technologies than those currently operating in the public generation fleet. Still, the economics of new gas-fired generation will depend heavily on fuel availability and pricing. Modern CCGT plants can reduce generation costs only if they have reliable access to gas at predictable prices. If gas must be imported, financed externally, or purchased in foreign currency, the apparent efficiency gains of new plants may be partly offset by fuel-price and exchange-rate exposure.

Today, much of Syria’s existing thermal generation capacity consists of aging power plants built between the late 1970s and early 2000s. Many of these facilities suffer from outdated turbine technology, low thermal efficiency, high fuel consumption per unit of electricity generated, and significant maintenance constraints after years of conflict and limited investment. As a result, the marginal cost of producing electricity at several existing plants is relatively high.

By contrast, modern CCGT plants generate electricity more efficiently by using both gas and steam turbines to extract additional energy from the same fuel input. This significantly reduces fuel consumption per unit of electricity produced, lowering generation costs. If new projects introduce such technologies under reasonably priced PPAs, they are likely to be dispatched before older, less efficient plants, thereby reducing the overall cost of electricity supply.

However, this outcome is not automatic. The potential cost benefits of private generation depend heavily on how investment projects are structured, negotiated, and procured. If electricity purchase agreements are signed at tariffs that exceed the marginal cost of alternative generation options, the introduction of private plants could increase the overall cost of electricity supply even if the plants themselves are technically efficient.

This risk is particularly relevant in contexts of institutional transition and urgent reconstruction needs. When governments face severe electricity shortages and strong pressure to rapidly expand generation capacity, large energy agreements may sometimes be negotiated quickly and with limited competitive procurement or regulatory scrutiny. In such circumstances, the absence of transparent tenders or benchmarking against comparable projects can make it difficult to ensure that electricity tariffs reflect the lowest achievable cost.

For this reason, the economic impact of private generation ultimately depends on the quality of procurement processes, contract design, and regulatory oversight, rather than the ownership structure of power plants. Transparent bidding procedures, cost benchmarking, and robust institutional review mechanisms are essential to ensure that private investment contributes to expanding electricity supply while keeping generation costs as low as possible.

Policy Implications for Syria

The debate over private participation in electricity generation should focus less on ownership and more on the institutional framework governing procurement, contracts, and system oversight. Private investment can help expand generation capacity and introduce more efficient technologies, but the economic outcome depends heavily on how projects are selected, negotiated, and regulated.

For this reason, strengthening governance and transparency in electricity procurement should be a central priority of Syria’s reconstruction strategy. Key priorities include:

Competitive and Transparent Procurement: Electricity generation projects should be awarded through transparent and competitive processes, such as international tenders. The Ministry of Energy has already issued dozens of tenders open to international bidders, mostly to procure energy resources, while tenders for infrastructure projects have been extremely limited. Competitive bidding via infrastructure-related tenders allows governments to benchmark electricity tariffs against comparable projects and select proposals offering the lowest cost of supply, reducing the risk of overpriced contracts. Going forward, encouraging multiple independent power producers and diversifying generation sources can prevent excessive reliance on individual suppliers, strengthen the government’s bargaining position in future procurement processes, and contribute to a more resilient and cost-efficient electricity system over time.

Careful Structuring of PPAs: PPAs should include clear tariff formulas, transparent indexation mechanisms for fuel costs and inflation, and well-defined performance obligations. Properly structured contracts can ensure that electricity tariffs reflect the actual cost of generation while protecting the public sector from excessive long-term financial commitments. Such contracts are frequent, and the Syrian government, especially the Directorate for Contracts and Loans at the PEEG, should refer to international best practices supported by international organizations.

International Technical Support and Benchmarking: Syria may benefit from technical assistance from international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and regional development banks to design procurement frameworks, benchmark electricity tariffs, and review major infrastructure contracts. Such cooperation can help ensure that new generation projects follow international best practices and remain financially sustainable.

Strengthening Regulatory and Institutional Oversight: A technically capable, independent regulatory framework is essential for supervising generator performance and monitoring contract compliance. Establishing or strengthening an independent electricity regulatory authority, or encouraging external audits, could play an important role in enhancing transparency and investor confidence. In that regard, support should be provided to the PEEG and PETDE in the lead-up to the implementation of large-scale private generation projects.

Parliamentary and Public Oversight of Major Energy Contracts: Given the long-term fiscal implications of large electricity projects, major PPAs and energy infrastructure agreements should be subject to appropriate parliamentary review, scrutiny, and oversight. Greater transparency in contract approval processes can strengthen public accountability and help build confidence that electricity investments serve the national interest.

Conclusion

The entry of private investors into Syria’s electricity generation sector does not inherently imply higher electricity prices. Electricity supply costs are determined primarily by generation efficiency and dispatch decisions, rather than by whether power plants are publicly or privately owned. As such, if new private plants operate at lower marginal costs than existing state-owned facilities, their introduction can reduce overall system costs while improving the reliability of electricity supply.

The key determinant of outcomes will be the strength of regulatory oversight. Transparent dispatch rules, effective cost monitoring, and well-structured contractual frameworks are essential to ensure that private participation helps expand electricity supply without increasing costs. Ultimately, the central policy challenge lies in establishing governance mechanisms capable of ensuring that all generators—public or private—operate in the public interest, not in the presence of private investors.

A Decade Marked by Two Phases

Between the signing of the EU-Syria cooperation agreement in 1977 and the early 1990s, only minimal amendments were made to the bilateral cooperation framework. Beyond the adoption of the Second Financial Protocol (1982–1986),1 the only technical amendment made to the cooperation framework before the launch of the Barcelona Process in 1995 was introduced on June 16, 1988. This amendment formalized the establishment of a Euro-Syrian Economic and Commercial Cooperation Committee to facilitate information exchange between the two parties, and also integrated Greece, Spain, and Portugal into the EEC-Syria agreement following their accession to the European Economic Community (EEC).2

During the early 1980s, EEC-Syria relations were stable and expanding, though largely one-sided, with Brussels steadily increasing its financial support for Damascus. This period of engagement culminated in the signing of the Second Financial Protocol in June 1982, reinforcing the EEC’s commitment to Syria’s economic development.3

However, this era of growing bilateral cooperation came to a sudden halt in April 1986. The Abu Nidal Organization (ANO),4 which operated with Syrian support, had intensified its attacks against European targets and interests in the meantime, leading to a sharp deterioration in relations. The fallout from ANO-linked terrorism, particularly a failed bombing in London, triggered an abrupt but short-lived diplomatic rupture between the EEC and Syria, marking the most severe crisis in their relations since they were first established back in 1964.

Bilateral Cooperation Flourishes

In April 1982, a joint delegation from the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) visited Syria to prepare the second financial protocol under the EEC-Syria cooperation framework. Led on the Community side by Maurice Foley, Christopher Lethbridge, and Ernest Lamers, and on the Syrian side by Vice-Minister for Planning Hamid Merei, the mission reached agreement on an indicative programme for future financing.5 The Community’s own programming paper made clear that its priorities in Syria were agriculture, small- and medium-industry, energy, infrastructure, and technical assistance.6

It is worth noting that the archival records of the time are strikingly technocratic and frame Syria almost entirely in terms of development needs, project pipelines, and implementation capacity. European diplomats make no mention of the security developments that unfolded throughout the late 1970s, culminating in the Hama Massacre of February 1982.7 While it can be understood that the mission was economic in nature, previous such economic missions did mention periods of turmoil and instability within the country, at least through an economic prism.

This omission can be understood within the broader geopolitical context of the time. Given the Iranian Revolution’s profound impact on Western policymakers, the dominant Western discourse shifted toward combating Islamism,8 leading to muted reactions to events like Hama. Likewise, Syria’s military intervention in Lebanon in 1976—which neither the EEC nor, more importantly, the United States actively opposed9—did not deter the EEC from maintaining its economic engagement with Damascus.

At the economic level, then, the joint Commission-EIB delegation painted a mixed picture of Syria’s economy and its needs. The delegation recognized Syria’s significant untapped potential in agriculture, industry, energy, and infrastructure, but also highlighted structural inefficiencies, poor planning, and weak coordination between government agencies and project execution bodies.10 While modernization efforts—particularly in agriculture and industrial development—were emphasized to reduce Syria’s dependence on foreign capital and increase employment, bureaucratic hurdles and mismanagement hindered the effective implementation of reforms.11

Without substantial external support and strategic reforms, Syria’s economy risked stagnation. In agriculture, the gap between food consumption and local production was widening, exacerbated by rapid population growth (3.3% per year12) and low irrigation levels, which leave the sector vulnerable to climate fluctuations and droughts. Meanwhile, the energy sector faced an impending crisis, as projections indicated that the electricity supply would become insufficient by 1985, unable to keep up with rising industrial, agricultural, and domestic demands.13

European officials also expressed frustration over the sluggish implementation of previously funded projects. Many investments, particularly in infrastructure and industry—both central to Syria’s import-substitution strategy aimed at fostering industrial development, modernization, and private-sector growth—had yet to yield tangible results due to delays in fund allocation, poor project execution, and a lack of financial discipline.14 Additionally, Syrian authorities hesitated to utilize EIB loans, preferring alternative financing options with more favorable interest rates.

Indeed, instead of fully engaging with European financial mechanisms, the Syrian government increasingly turned to Arab and international lenders offering more favorable terms. For example, through the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), Syria secured approximately USD 65 million in loans on highly preferential terms.15 This reluctance, combined with weak institutional capacity and administrative inefficiencies, created an environment where funding commitments often failed to translate into meaningful economic progress.

For instance, the first financial protocol signed between the EEC and Syria, which was supposed to cover the four-year period from 1977 to 1981, had been implemented only partially by June 1982. Despite a total allocation of ECU 60 million, only a small fraction of the funds had been effectively disbursed, with bureaucratic inefficiencies, delays in project execution, and reluctance to use EIB loans cited as major obstacles.16

By mid-1982, only 20.3% of the non-repayable grants had been disbursed, while EIB loans remained largely untouched. Some projects, such as the Tall Tamir-Tall Alo Road construction, were approved but had not yet received any funding. Others, such as the industrial study and dairy farm projects, suffered delays due to administrative bottlenecks and poor coordination between planning authorities and executing bodies.17

The Second Financial Protocol between the EEC and Syria, signed in 1982 for a period covering 1982 to 1986, aimed to address the shortcomings of the First Protocol while continuing financial cooperation in key sectors. With a proposed allocation of ECU 97 million, split among ECU 64 million in the form of EIB loans, and, from the Commission, ECU 22 million in the form of grants and ECU 11 million in the form of loans on special terms; that is, repayable over 40 years at an interest rate of 1% per annum, with a 10-year grace period on interest.18

Throughout the second protocol’s negotiations, the EEC emphasized the need to modernize Syria’s economy, including expanding irrigation, increasing livestock production, improving energy infrastructure, and upgrading telecommunications and education facilities.19 However, European institutions were reluctant to commit to funding specific projects without clearer guarantees of improved execution and oversight. European officials stressed the need for stronger financial discipline, arguing that many of the delays in the First Protocol stemmed from poor project planning and coordination between Syrian authorities and European donors.20

The early 1980s revealed the structural limits of the EEC-Syria relationship, which had been formalized since 1977. On paper, the cooperation framework appeared stable, institutionalised, and increasingly ambitious; in practice, however, it remained narrow, technocratic, and weakly transformative. European institutions approached Syria primarily through the language of projects, sectors, and implementation capacity, even as political violence, regional intervention, and domestic repression were reshaping the Syrian regime’s position. At the same time, Damascus viewed the Community as a useful but ultimately secondary partner: a source of finance, equipment, and technical expertise, but not one to which it was willing to adapt its broader strategic behaviour. The result was a relationship resilient enough to survive weak implementation, yet too shallow to withstand a major political-security shock.

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Short-Lived Severance of Ties

In that sense, the 1986 crisis did not simply interrupt an otherwise successful trajectory; it exposed the underlying contradiction of the relationship. The Community’s Mediterranean approach was built above all on economic instruments, with limited capacity to integrate hard political and security questions into its external action. Syria, for its part, had been able to compartmentalise its relations with Europe, benefiting from economic cooperation while pursuing regional policies that rested on very different calculations. Once terrorism entered the bilateral equation directly, that compartmentalisation became untenable for the Europeans, and the limits of the cooperation framework were suddenly laid bare.

It was in this context that EEC-Syria relations entered their deepest crisis to date. This rupture was all the more striking because it interrupted a relationship that, only a few years earlier, had been institutionalized through the 1982 Financial Protocol and a joint Commission-European Investment Bank mission.

The immediate trigger for the crisis was the attempted bombing of an El Al aircraft at London’s Heathrow Airport on 17 April 1986. The attack, carried out by the Jordanian national Nizar Hindawi, was widely understood in Western capitals as having involved Syrian official complicity.21

Indeed, although the ANO was responsible for a series of terrorist attacks across Europe—including in the United Kingdom, France, and Italy—the EEC targeted Syria because of Damascus’ well-documented support for the ANO’s activities.22 Syrian intelligence services had long provided operational backing to militant groups, and in the Hindawi Affair, direct Syrian involvement was deemed irrefutable. In response, the United Kingdom severed diplomatic ties with Syria, while the United States and Canada recalled their ambassadors from Damascus.23 Furthermore, the “Hindawi Affair,” as it became known, prompted the Twelve to adopt restrictive measures against Syria on 10 November 1986, shortly after Hindawi’s conviction by a British court.24 These measures included a ban on new arms sales to Syria, while allowing existing contracts to be honored; the suspension of high-level diplomatic visits; a review of Syrian diplomatic and consular activities in member states, with possible countermeasures; and tighter security measures for Syrian Arab Airlines operations within the Community.25

Yet the 1986 measures stopped short of a complete diplomatic rupture. The Community’s response was severe in symbolic and political terms, but limited in substance. The measures did not affect existing arms deliveries, and Syria primarily sourced its military equipment from the Soviet Union rather than from European suppliers.26 Even within the EEC, Greek officials openly questioned the effectiveness of the sanctions, with Deputy Foreign Minister Kostas Zouraris dismissing them as “three symbolic measures that mean nothing, plus a statement on arms sales.”27

However, Syria’s diplomatic isolation proved short-lived. By June 1987, just six months after the European measures were imposed, Damascus was able to re-engage with the international community following the closure of the ANO offices on its territory.28 Consequently, sentiment in Brussels shifted, and the European Commission, after several diplomatic exchanges (including contacts in Syria), proposed reviving negotiations for the Third Financial Protocol.29 Still, the United Kingdom remained firmly opposed, arguing that Syria’s involvement in terrorism had not changed. Given that financial protocols required unanimous approval, the Commission was unable to move forward with negotiations.30

Politically and diplomatically, EEC–Syria relations were effectively restored in the early 1990s. This normalization prompted the European Commission to reflect on the trajectory of the relationship. On May 24, 1991, in response to a written question posed a month earlier by a European Parliament member regarding the re-establishment of ties between Brussels and Damascus, the Commission outlined three key justifications for maintaining engagement with Syria.31

While acknowledging Syria’s shortcomings in human rights and democratic governance, the Commission argued that maintaining a framework for dialogue, information exchange, and vigilance was preferable to severing ties. Moreover, concerning Syria’s presence in Lebanon, the Commission emphasized the importance of avoiding Syria’s isolation, given its strategic influence in broader Middle Eastern conflicts. Finally, the Commission recognized that it could not unilaterally isolate Damascus, particularly when the United States and other Western powers had already begun to normalize relations in the context of the Gulf War.32

Conclusion

The 1980s marked the moment when EEC-Syria relations were tested against their own limits. The Second Financial Protocol (1982–1986) reinforced European financial support, but bureaucratic inefficiencies, weak implementation capacity, and Syria’s preference for more concessional external financing limited its practical impact. More fundamentally, the decade showed that the relationship remained politically shallow: substantial enough to sustain economic cooperation, but not deep enough to absorb a serious security crisis. The Hindawi Affair in 1986, therefore, not only triggered the first EEC-imposed sanctions on Syria; it also exposed the fragility of a partnership built on technocratic engagement and strategic ambiguity.

Yet Syria’s isolation proved short-lived. By 1987, Damascus had taken steps to restore ties with Europe, and by the early 1990s, bilateral engagement was resuming. The approval of two new financial protocols in 1992 and 1993, followed by Syria’s participation in the Barcelona Process in 1995, signalled a return to structured cooperation and set the stage for a more pragmatic, though still complex, relationship in the decade that followed.

This paper is the third of a series of six papers examining the relationship between the European Union (including its earlier institutional incarnations) and Syria. Drawing on diplomatic archives, grey literature, trade statistics, and contemporaneous policy documents, the series seeks to shed light on a scarcely documented relationship that has oscillated between strategic pragmatism and political estrangement.

By tracing the evolution of diplomatic contacts, trade flows, aid conditionality, and cooperation frameworks, the series aims to unpack how economic interdependence often preceded political alignment and how mutual caution repeatedly constrained deeper integration.

You can read Part 1, on the 1960s and the first diplomatic ties between Syria and the EEC, here, and Part 2, on the 1970s and the EEC-Syria Cooperation Agreement, here.

Launching the Global Mediterranean Policy

In the early 1970s, the European Economic Community (EEC) embarked on its so-called ‘Global Mediterranean Policy’ to unify the policies it had used to address its Southern neighbourhood to that point. While the bloc had already signed various agreements with some Southern European and Mediterranean countries, these agreements did not represent a unified approach. These case-by-case agreements resembled ‘uncoordinated responses to external stimuli’ rather than a coherent policy.1

To make up for this lack of unified policy, then, the Commission launched, in 1972, the ‘Global Mediterranean Policy’. At the time, several factors made such a policy necessary.

First, superpower rivalry in the Mediterranean pushed the EEC to assert a more coherent presence in what it increasingly viewed as its immediate strategic environment. Second, Western Europeans sought to secure their oil supplies, with about 18.5% of their oil coming from Mediterranean countries. Third, the Commission sought to preserve and expand access to Mediterranean markets, which already absorbed a significant share of Community exports. In addition, the Commission also had other economic factors in mind when devising this policy, such as investment opportunities and migrant labour–the former outbound, while the latter inbound.2

Within this context, in a communication to the EEC member states, the European Commission stressed that increased cooperation with Syria and the provision of additional financial support would be ‘beneficial for the Community itself, as it would facilitate the provision of capital goods, expertise, and the necessary technology for the implementation of the projects being financed.’3

Within the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Global Mediterranean Policy also had a political dimension. The EEC sought to position itself as a mediator in the region, promoting stability through economic cooperation while gradually asserting a more independent role from the United States. This was particularly relevant following the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the ensuing oil crisis, which underscored Europe’s vulnerability to Middle Eastern geopolitics. By strengthening ties with Arab Mediterranean states, the EEC aimed to balance its relations with both Israel and the Arab world while ensuring continued access to vital energy resources.

Whether this ‘Global Mediterranean Policy’ was successful is not the argument of this research; however, it is within this context that the EEC would seek to develop its relations with Syria by signing a cooperation agreement.

While Syria had established diplomatic ties with the EEC in the 1960s (Read ‘The Relationship Between the EU and Syria (1) — The 1960s’), its engagement remained limited and primarily economic. Content with strengthening its ties with the USSR and wary of deeper Western alignment, Damascus had shown little enthusiasm for significantly expanding its relationship with Brussels until the mid-1970s, when political and economic pressures made cooperation with the EEC more attractive. Despite its closeness to Moscow, Syria’s alignment with the USSR was not blind nor absolute. A key moment illustrating this diplomatic flexibility came in August 1972, when Syria participated in the Georgetown Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), sending a delegation led by Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. French observers interpreted Syria’s increased involvement in the NAM as a sign of its desire to avoid exclusive dependence on the Soviet Union.4

Damascus’ diplomatic flexibility also shone on March 26 and 27, 1974, during a series of meetings between the European and Syrian delegations in Damascus. At the time, the Syrians expressed their interest in opening negotiations with Brussels to deepen their diplomatic and commercial relations, something which greatly surprised Europeans diplomats, who, in a communication from the Commission to the Council, stated that Syria “has always shown a clear reservation in the past” regarding its desire to further its cooperation with the EEC.5

Damascus’s interest in deepening its ties with the EEC in early 1974 was not, however, especially surprising. Historically aligned with the Soviet Union and cautious in its dealings with Western entities, Syria began actively pursuing negotiations with the EEC as part of a broader strategy to balance its international relations, diversify its economy, and reduce its over-reliance on a single ally. The aftermath of the October War had placed a significant strain on Syria’s economy, and the rising cost of imports from Western countries, exacerbated by the 1970s energy crisis, further worsened the country’s trade balance. As a result, faced with these economic pressures, Syria sought engagement with the EEC to access new markets, secure financial aid, and obtain technological support, thereby addressing immediate economic concerns while maintaining its sovereignty and strategic interests.

In 1973, bilateral trade with the EEC accounted for 32.9% of Syria’s total foreign trade, and the following year reached EUA 231.1 million.6 Syria’s following year to reach EUA 231.1 million. The EEC’s favourable position as a supplier was primarily due to the high technical level of its industrial production, which aligned with Syrians' equipment needs. However, Syrian products’ limited reach in the markets of Community countries was due to the mediocre quality of many local industrial products and Syria’s delivery commitments to certain Eastern European countries under previous barter agreements.7

As a result, the growing economic difficulties due to an unfavourable trade balance meant that the Syrian government was doubtful that it could reach the objectives of this fourth five-year plan spanning (1976-1980)8–which most notably entailed the doubling of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) over the next seven years–without support from the EEC.

On February 4, 1976, the then Deputy Minister of the Syrian Ministry of Economy and Trade Ammar Jamal explained that “it is understood that Syria, besides the efforts it has to make to reach [its] objectives, must, on the one hand, count on cooperation and aid from friendly countries and, on the other hand, must revise its position regarding its commercial exchanges.”9 “Undoubtedly, as you know, our trade balance with the EEC is in deficit,” declared Mr. Jamal, who continued by arguing that “this deficit has increased very rapidly in recent years. It was around 126.8 million SYP in 1970; it rose to 885.7 million SYP in 1974. The deficit will undoubtedly exceed this figure in 1975.” At the same time, Mr. Jamal argued that reducing the deficit required a significant increase in Syrian exports, which in turn demanded investment to boost production, something the EEC could help finance10

In fact, the period during which the cooperation agreement between the EEC and Syria was negotiated was marked by other attempts by Damascus to address its trade balance. In the first nine months of 1974, Syria signed more than a dozen bilateral agreements with Western and Eastern countries, including several trade agreements.11

In parallel, 1974 was marked by Damascus’ significant opening vis-à-vis the West, as shown by growing trade flows and the resumption of ties with major Western Powers, including the United States in June and the Federal Republic of Germany in August. This thaw in the relationship between Damascus and Washington following the October War also enabled a significant American loan of 75,000 tonnes of wheat flour and 25,000 tonnes of rice, repayable over 20 years.12

In addition to these factors, the launch of the ‘Global Mediterranean Policy’ led the EEC to open negotiations on January 23, 1975, with four Mashreq countries—Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, 13 and Jordan.14 On February 4 and 5, 1976, the first bilateral negotiations between the EEC and Syria took place and were concluded in October of the same year.15

More broadly, the mid-1970s revealed a convergence of interests rather than a true political rapprochement. For Damascus, cooperation with the EEC offered a way to diversify external partnerships, ease mounting trade pressures, and secure capital, technology, and market access without abandoning its broader strategic posture. For the Community, Syria fit into a wider Mediterranean framework in which economic cooperation was expected to generate stability, interdependence, and influence. The result was the gradual institutionalisation of a relationship that remained pragmatic on both sides: more structured than before, but still largely confined to the economic sphere.

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The Cooperation Agreement

Once negotiations had been completed with Syria and the other Arab countries, except Lebanon, European officials again stressed the significance of the agreement, noting how sharply it contrasted with Syria’s reserved attitude toward the Community only a few years earlier.16 Moreover, the nature of the agreement was also considered a significant win for the European diplomats, who argued that, since the cooperation agreement was signed for an unlimited period, it fostered a common vision for long-term cooperation among the two parties.

Besides their unlimited nature, these agreements included two other “essential characteristics”: their comprehensiveness and their evolutionary nature, and provided for the establishment of common institutions.17

Summary of the EEC-Syria Cooperation Agreement

The main object of the agreement between Syria and the EEC signed in Brussels on 18 January 1977 is to establish a wide area of cooperation between the two sides and to promote Syria’s economic and social development. The agreement covers trade, economic and technical cooperation as well as financial aid totalling 60 million European units of account (1ua = 4.45 sp ).

As the agreement is for an unlimited period it provides a stable contractual framework for making long term planning decisions. Projects giving far reaching benefits e.g. investment in basic infrastructure such as roads and power supplies, can be implemented.

The agreement is also dynamic in the sense that it is capable of continuous improvement based on the principles of interdependence, equality and joint management. It is managed by a cooperation council which may set up specialist committees as required. A timetable has been set for examining the results of the agreement and introducing improvements. The first review will take place in 1979 and the second in 1984.

By virtue of its globality, the agreement provides for cooperation in the economic, financial, and commercial sectors. Economic cooperation encompasses infrastructure development and cooperation in industry, science, technology, environmental protection, research, and development, while financial cooperation relates to the bilateral financial protocol covering the period 1977-1981, granting Syria various loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and non-reimbursable aid of 60 million EAU, equivalent to 267 million SYP.18 As for trade cooperation, the cooperation agreement enshrines a most-favoured-nation clause between the bloc and Syria and ultimately aims to achieve the total and gradual abolition of customs duties between the European and Syrian markets.19

The evolutionary nature of the cooperation agreement is reflected in a general review clause that allows the agreement to be revised and improved, if necessary, on dates previously agreed by the parties. Regarding the monitoring of the agreements, a Cooperation Council was established, composed of representatives of both parties, responsible for ensuring compliance with and the proper functioning of the agreements and, as necessary, proposing certain reorientations.20

On January 18, 1977, the EEC and Syria signed a cooperation agreement that has served as the basis for relations between Brussels and Damascus to this day (when the context allows). This agreement serves as the primary channel for the bilateral relationship, encouraging dialogue, cooperation, and assistance between the two parties.

It should be noted, however, that this agreement concerns only trade, the economy, and technical cooperation and, in fact, does not include any provision for political dialogue. For this, we will have to wait for the “Barcelona Declaration” of November 1995, adopted by Syria jointly with the European Union, its fifteen Member States at the time21, and eleven other Mediterranean countries.22

But this limitation was not incidental, however. It reflected both the strengths and the constraints of the EEC’s Mediterranean approach in the 1970s. The Community had developed a more coherent framework for engaging Southern Mediterranean states, but it still lacked the tools and, in many respects, the unity to translate economic cooperation into a fuller political relationship. In Syria’s case, the result was a durable but bounded arrangement: broad enough to support trade, aid, and technical cooperation, yet too narrow to anchor sustained political convergence.

Conclusion

The 1970s marked the decisive institutional turn in EEC-Syria relations. The 1977 Cooperation Agreement transformed what had previously been a limited and uneven relationship into a structured framework for trade, financial assistance, and technical cooperation. Yet this deepening was driven less by political convergence than by a convergence of interests: Syria sought markets, capital, and technology amid mounting economic pressure, while the Community sought to fold Syria into a broader Mediterranean strategy centered on stability, access, and interdependence.

For that reason, the new framework was both significant and limited. It gave the bilateral relationship a stable contractual basis and created institutions intended to sustain long-term cooperation, but it remained overwhelmingly economic in character. The agreement broadened the scope of engagement without resolving its underlying narrowness: it institutionalised cooperation, but did not produce a genuinely political partnership.

As Syria entered the 1980s, relations with the EEC continued under the same cooperation framework, with few substantial changes. A second financial protocol (1982–1986) provided further economic support, yet diplomatic tensions continued to surface. The Hindawi Affair in 1986, in which Syrian intelligence was implicated in an attempted terrorist attack, led the EEC to impose sanctions on Damascus. Though largely symbolic, these measures revealed the vulnerability of a relationship whose institutional foundations were stronger in the economic sphere than in the political one.

This paper is the second of a series of six papers examining the relationship between the European Union (including its earlier institutional incarnations) and Syria. Drawing on diplomatic archives, grey literature, trade statistics, and contemporaneous policy documents, the series seeks to shed light on a scarcely documented relationship that has oscillated between strategic pragmatism and political estrangement.

By tracing the evolution of diplomatic contacts, trade flows, aid conditionality, and cooperation frameworks, the series aims to unpack how economic interdependence often preceded political alignment and how mutual caution repeatedly constrained deeper integration.

You can read Part 1, on the 1960s and the first diplomatic ties between Syria and the EEC, here, and Part 2, on the 1970s and the EEC-Syria Cooperation Agreement, here.

First Diplomatic Ties

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Syria had no relationship with the European Economic Community (EEC). Leading up to the establishment of the EEC in 1957, Syria’s ties with the soon-to-be member states were tepid. In November 1956, Syria severed all ties with France, its most important partner in Western Europe, following the Suez Crisis.1 At the same time, hostility towards Israel, growing ties with the Soviet Union (USSR), and the short-lived union with Egypt distanced Syria from the Western bloc and limited the scope for any early engagement with the newly created EEC.

Following the coup d’état that brought the leftist Ba’ath Party to power in Syria in 1963, Syria’s ties with the USSR grew stronger. Yet, early Ba’athism also advocated some form of neutrality between the two blocs, meaning that, ultimately, Damascus’ refusal to be tied to any foreign state, at least symbolically, allowed it to maintain ties with the West until the Six-Day War.

In the meantime, Damascus and Paris had mended their relationship, with Syria viewing rapprochement with Gaullist France, and by extension with the EEC, as a way to diversify its Western ties without falling into dependence on the United States, while also benefiting from access to the European common market. 2

While Syria had already engaged with EEC member states,3 the first official contact with the EEC occurred in February 1964, when Syria expressed concern about the conclusion of a trade agreement between the EEC and Israel, ultimately resulting in the Syrian government summoning the Six’s representatives to Damascus.4 This was noteworthy: Syria’s first formal engagement with the Community emerged not through alignment, but through objection, underscoring how political distance and economic relevance coexisted from the outset.

Still, the first demand to establish an official diplomatic relationship between the EEC and Syria came on April 10, 1964. On this date, the Syrian embassy in Brussels conveyed, by verbal note, Damascus’s wish to establish a diplomatic mission to the EEC.5 On May 25, 1964, the EEC’s Council of Ministers approved the opening of the Syrian diplomatic mission. The small office remained mostly inactive in the years that followed. Syria did not appoint a Chargé d’Affaires, Selim Al-Yafi, until January 11, 1967—three years after the Commission approved the Syrian mission.6

Initially, the establishment of diplomatic ties failed to materialize into anything concrete. Syria’s involvement in the Six-Day War in 1967 strained its newly established relationship with the EEC, and the Syrian authorities would then wait three years—until June 23, 1970—to send a full-fledged head of mission, Adib Daoudy, to the EEC.7 Alongside sending Mr. Daoudy, Damascus expressed its desire to strengthen its diplomatic ties with the European Communities by extending the Syrian diplomatic mission to the EEC to include the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC).8 The Council of Ministers approved the expansion of diplomatic ties with these two communities on July 20 and August 18, 1970, respectively.9

This marked an important milestone in the bilateral relationship and gave real substance to what had until then remained a mostly nominal diplomatic connection. Up to that point, chronic instability within Syria, together with its image in European eyes as a disruptive regional actor, had made the Community cautious about deepening engagement with Damascus.

Shortly after strengthening ties with Brussels, Damascus seized the opportunity to request food aid from the EEC, amounting to 80,000 tonnes of wheat, on July 20, 1970.10 This demand came at a time when the Syrian agricultural sector had suffered from neglect and political instability.11 The nationalization of most of the country’s economic sectors, which led to stagnation in the agricultural sector and rapid population growth (+40 percent between 1960 and 1970), also increased food needs.12 This, coupled with the fact that most of the country’s agriculture was rainfed and thus subject to potentially significant annual fluctuations, allowed food aid to act as a buffer against extreme weather events.

Two years later, the EEC acceded to this request and granted Syria food aid, albeit under conditions. On April 11, 1972, the two parties signed the “agreement between the EEC and the Syrian Arab Republic on the supply of common wheat as food aid,” ultimately equivalent to 7,500 tonnes of wheat. Provided under strict conditions, the agreement stipulated, among other things, that the profits linked to the sale of the European food aid—in case Damascus acquired food aid that was not needed to meet the Syrian population’s needs at the time—were exclusively deposited in a specific account intended to cover Syria’s expenses in terms of financing development projects.13 In subsequent food aid agreements, the Europeans reinforced this conditionality by requiring that any development projects financed through the proceeds of these sales receive prior approval from the European Commission.14

Fluctuating Trade Relations

Despite the lack of significant diplomatic and political ties, EEC-Syria trade ties were important for Damascus. Before 1957, Western Europe was Syria’s most significant trading partner. Afterward, the situation evolved so that the largest purchasers of Syrian goods were no longer the largest suppliers (Western Europe at the time). Arab and ‘communist countries’, particularly China, became significant buyers of Syrian goods, such as cotton. Still, Western European countries, specifically those within the EEC, remained Syria’s primary suppliers. According to European trade data (see table below),15 Syria’s imports from EEC countries accounted for about one-third of its total imports, while about one-fifth to one-quarter of its total exports went to the EEC.16

Although these percentages were already significant, the potential for bilateral trade was much higher. Despite the general non-discrimination in trade regulations between EEC member states and Syria, Western exporters faced difficulties due to delays in currency transfers from Syrian importers. At the time, the lack of a bilateral payment agreement between the EEC and Syria meant that Syrian importers had to wait longer to secure export currency. Thus, Syrian importers were inclined toward countries with which Syria had signed such agreements, such as China and Eastern European nations, to circumvent currency issues. This delay in currency transfers led to Western products being more expensive, as importers had to secure currency through the parallel monetary market (black market), where foreign currency was about 8 percent more expensive.17

At the same time, the USSR had seized the opportunity offered by the Syrian coup of February 1966 to strengthen its ties with Syria,18 thereby leading to a significant increase in trade between the two countries. Between 1965 and 1967, Syrian imports from the USSR multiplied by four, while exports to the USSR increased by 15 percent.

Overall, the 1960s revealed a structural feature that would long shape relations between Damascus and Brussels: political hesitation coexisted with economic interdependence. Syria remained wary of closer alignment with Western Europe and continued to deepen its strategic ties with the Soviet bloc, yet the EEC and its member states retained a central place in Syria’s external economic relations, particularly as suppliers of industrial goods and, increasingly, as a potential source of development support. In that sense, the first decade of EEC-Syria relations did not produce a full-fledged partnership, but it did establish the basic pattern on which later cooperation would rest: political caution on both sides, combined with a persistent Syrian need for European markets, technology, and finance.

The start of the 1970s, marked by Hafez al-Assad’s consolidation of power and the beginning of a relative economic and political opening (infitah) in Syria, seemed to have facilitated a diplomatic rapprochement with Western powers. Relations with the West, hitherto fluctuating due to various conflicts with Israel, thus seemed to warm up from 1974 onward.

A delegation from the EEC was sent to Damascus on 26 and 27 March 1974 to discuss the possibilities of cooperation between Syria and the EEC.19 Around the same time, Syria had signed two agreements with France in July and November 1974,20 and resumed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom in May 1973, the United States in June 1974, and with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) the following month.21

The development of trade relations between the EEC and Syria mirrored this apparent political rapprochement. The EEC once again became Syria’s largest trading partner, accounting for 32.9 percent of Syria’s total foreign trade, compared with 26.7 percent for the Eastern Bloc.

Compared to the Eastern Bloc, the EEC benefited from technological and industrial advances, enabling it to produce goods essential to Syria’s development plans that were not available domestically or in neighboring regions at the required quality and scale. While it is true that Syria benefited from significant development aid from the socialist bloc, such as roads, dams, and ports, under conditions that were difficult for Western Europeans to compete with, the long construction times and limited profitability still made it necessary for Syrians to seek equipment elsewhere in the short term. Syrian imports from the EEC included high-tech industrial goods, machinery, and equipment needed to develop Syria’s infrastructure and industrial base.22

Thus, the share of Syria’s imports coming from the EEC rose from roughly one-quarter in 1970 to nearly 40 percent in 1974. As for exports, Syria primarily exported raw materials and agricultural products, which were in less demand in EEC countries (see table below).23 Moreover, the quality of Syrian industrial products was often not competitive enough for the demanding European markets, which limited their attractiveness as imports in the EEC. As a result, only one-fifth of Syria’s total exports reached the EEC markets.

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In the early 1970s, the main goal of Syrian economic policy was to improve the “terms of trade” by enhancing the quality and finishing of local industrial productions, aiming to reduce the export of raw materials in favor of finished and semi-finished goods.24 It was with this objective in mind—which could be accomplished with European development aid—that Damascus would seek to expedite the signing of a bilateral cooperation agreement.

Showing its willingness to develop deeper ties with its European counterparts, the Syrian government would even use the ‘trade argument’, among others, to push for the conclusion of a cooperation agreement between Damascus and Brussels, which would eventually come into effect in 1977.

During the first session of negotiations on a cooperation agreement between the EEC and Syria, the Syrian delegation presented this expansion in trade not as a passive trend, but as the result of a deliberate political choice by Damascus. Ammar Jamal, then Deputy Minister of the Syrian Ministry of Economy and Trade, declared that:

Syria, under the presidency of Mister Hafez Al-Assad, has shown its goodwill towards the Common Market25 by considerably increasing the volume of our trade with the Member States of the E.E.C. Our imports from the E.E.C. constituted in 1970, 26.6 percent of our total imports; this percentage rose to 39.2 percent in 1974.26

Conclusion

The 1960s marked the beginning of Syria’s engagement with the EEC, yet this relationship remained tentative and largely driven by economic pragmatism rather than political alignment. While Syria was deepening its ties with the Soviet Union, it also saw the EEC as a potential economic partner, particularly as a source of trade and development support. However, the diplomatic engagement was hesitant—Damascus took years to fully establish its mission to the EEC, and political instability in Syria, coupled with its role in regional conflicts, made European policymakers wary of deepening ties.

Despite these limitations, the decade laid an essential foundation for future cooperation. Syria’s uneven trade relationship with the EEC highlighted the country’s dependence on European markets for imports, while the challenges it faced, including currency transfer delays and reliance on food aid, underscored the economic vulnerabilities that would later shape its approach to European partners.

More fundamentally, the 1960s revealed a pattern that would endure for decades: political caution coexisted with economic relevance. Syria did not move closer to the EEC in strategic or ideological terms, yet the Community was already becoming an important economic interlocutor, as a supplier of industrial goods, a potential source of development support, and eventually a diplomatic channel worth cultivating. As Syria entered the 1970s, these limited openings gradually evolved into a more structured framework for cooperation, culminating in the 1977 Cooperation Agreement. While political convergence remained limited, the foundations laid during this earlier period helped shape the trajectory of EEC-Syria relations for the decades that followed.

This paper is the first of a series of six papers examining the relationship between the European Union (including its earlier institutional incarnations) and Syria. Drawing on diplomatic archives, grey literature, trade statistics, and contemporaneous policy documents, the series seeks to shed light on a scarcely documented relationship that has oscillated between strategic pragmatism and political estrangement.

By tracing the evolution of diplomatic contacts, trade flows, aid conditionality, and cooperation frameworks, the series aims to unpack how economic interdependence often preceded political alignment and how mutual caution repeatedly constrained deeper integration.

You can read Part 1, on the 1960s and the first diplomatic ties between Syria and the EEC, here, and Part 2, on the 1970s and the EEC-Syria Cooperation Agreement, here.