EIB to halt Turkey government-linked lending till year-end

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will not do any new lending in Turkey linked to the government until at least the end of the year while it carries out a strategy review. The move is part of a European Union decision earlier this month to symbolically punish Turkey over what it calls "illegal" drilling for oil and gas off Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean.

"As the EU Bank, the EIB will follow the Council's recommendations and, notably, will take a restrictive approach toward the submission of new lending operations to its Board for approval for the rest of the year," an EIB spokeswoman told Reuters.

The EIB, which is Turkey's biggest single lender, has spent between 0.4 billion euros ($446 million) and 2.2 billion euros ($2.45 billion) a year in the country over the last three years, while nothing has been invested so far in 2019.

The freeze is not...