Paris - Several western economic institutions are joining to provide up to 24.5 billion euros (31.1 billion dollars) in aid to struggling banks in central and eastern Europe, it was announced on Friday.

The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have pledged to provide the funding "to support the banking sectors in the region and to fund lending to businesses hit by the global economic crisis," the institutions said in a statement.

This aid is to complement national rescue plans and is intended to support lending to the real economy through private banking groups, in particular to small and medium-sized enterprises.

The aid will include equity and debt finance, credit lines, and political risk insurance.

EIB President Philippe Maystadt said, "This joint action plan will help speed up the delivery of vital finance through the banks to support the real economy of hard-hit countries in central, eastern and southern Europe, and particularly to help small businesses survive in these turbulent times."

In an interview published Friday in the French daily Le Figaro, EBRD president Thomas Mirow said banks in central and eastern Europe banks need as much as 350 million euros in aid.

Mirow said the banks need 150 million euros for recapitalization and 200 million euros for refinancing, "if you go by the worst-case scenario." He added that the aid must be provided quickly.

"It's a question of weeks. Our plan must be implemented as quickly as possible or there will be a credit crunch in eastern Europe, that is, insufficient financing for enterprises, households and foreign trade," he said.

A number of eastern European banks could fail, Mirow said. "In the current crisis, numerous banks need state support via national rescue plans as well as our aid."

The EBRD head warned that, because 10 or 12 western European banks are deeply involved in central and eastern Europe, "if their branch banks fail in the east it will almost certainly have an impact on the euro zone."

The countries that are most vulnerable to the weakness of the eastern European banking system are France, Greece, Italy, Austria, Sweden and Germany, Mirow said.