Syria wants Europe to help rebuild the country, not just fund its recovery, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas in Damascus on September 29.

Speaking at a joint press conference at Tishreen Palace, al-Shaibani said Damascus wanted its partnership with the EU to turn into support for reconstruction, pointing to Syria's location and the role it could play in regional cooperation. The two sides had worked through several issues in technical committees and were reviewing agreements Syria had signed with the bloc in the past, he said.

Kallas said the EU was already providing €620mn for recovery, humanitarian needs and strengthening state institutions, and had allocated a further €51mn through its foreign policy instruments, with mine clearance among the uses.

“Aid alone cannot build Syria. Foreign and domestic investment needs trust, and trust needs security, clear rules, rule of law, functioning institutions,” she said.

The visit moves the relationship on from sanctions relief and emergency aid to the harder question of who pays to rebuild a country wrecked by more than 13 years of war. The IMF sees double-digit growth in 2026, but investors still need the security and legal certainty Kallas described.

Brussels has moved quickly since Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024. It fully reinstated the EU-Syria Cooperation Agreement in May and lifted sanctions on state entities including the defence and interior ministries. On September 6 its ambassador, Michael Ohnmacht, presented his credentials to President Ahmed al-Sharaa, giving the EU ambassador-level representation in Damascus for the first time since 2012.

Kallas said the success of Syria's transition mattered to Europe and described the EU's recent measures as political signals towards normalising relations. “Now we aim to mobilise even more investment and upgrade our partnership,” she said, adding that this would depend on Damascus pressing on with reforms.

The EU is also discussing financing for projects in Syria through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), while the European Investment Bank (EIB) is looking at support for the infrastructure that forms the backbone of the Syrian economy, Kallas said. Syria has not yet joined the EBRD.

Al-Shaibani said the two sides aimed to prepare a joint scoping paper by the end of the first quarter of 2027, a first step towards a new partnership agreement to replace their 1977 cooperation accord, state news agency SANA reported.

Damascus also wants to be included in the EU's 2028-2034 budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework, and is pressing for the remaining sanctions on state institutions to be lifted while those on figures of the former regime stay in place. Al-Shaibani first made the case for a strategic partnership at talks in Brussels in May.

Kallas welcomed the safe and dignified return of Syrian refugees, saying they would be able to help rebuild the country. More than 3.5mn refugees and internally displaced Syrians have returned home, al-Sharaa told the UN General Assembly on September 23.

Al-Shaibani urged the EU to take a firm position on Israeli military action on Syrian territory, restated that the Golan Heights are Syrian and called for adherence to the 1974 disengagement agreement.

“This systematic aggression against a country that is recovering requires more than statements of concern; it requires effective pressure to stop these attacks,” he said, calling for Israeli forces to pull back to the lines they held on December 8, 2024.

Kallas said the 1974 agreement “must be respected”. Talks on a Syria-Israel security pact were 90% complete before they collapsed, according to al-Sharaa.

Al-Shaibani also pitched Syria as a security partner for Europe. “We discussed ways to support the capacities of the Syrian coast guard, in the belief that the security of the Mediterranean also begins with our shores,” he said.