* EBRD will need more capital if more is required of it
* Emerging Europe slowdown bottoming out after poor data
* EBRD talks to banks about investing in E.Europe units
* Bank brings forward review of capital resources
* EBRD to invest 5 bln euros in sustainable energy by 2012 (Updates with comments from news briefing)
By Carolyn Cohn
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will need more capital if it has to do more to help central and eastern European economies, EBRD President Thomas Mirow said on Tuesday.
The bank has capital of 20 billion euros but G20 leaders in April agreed a $1.1 trillion increase in funds for the International Monetary Fund and said the capital needs of the EBRD should also be reviewed.
"It depends on what our shareholders expect from us. If they want us to do very much more, then the question of a capital increase will be on the table," Mirow told Reuters and Reuters Television in an interview.
Set up at the end of the Cold War in 1991 to help former communist countries adjust to free markets, the EBRD has said it would spend a record 7 billion euros in investment this year to help its region of operation combat the worst financial crisis since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.
Mirow said 2 billion euros has already been committed.
The development bank slashed its growth forecasts for the region last week to a 5.2 percent contraction in 2009 from a forecast of 0.1 percent growth made only a few months ago.
"We had a disastrous Q4 2008 and a very bad Q1 2009. We see some bottoming out but it's not possible to predict anything better than we did," Mirow said.
He was particularly concerned about deteriorating economic conditions in the Baltic states, Hungary, Ukraine and Russia.
An improvement in emerging Europe was also linked to the pace of any western European recovery.
"Countries like the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Hungary are tremendously dependent on what is happening in Germany, Austria, Italy and other parts of western Europe," he said. "We see some bottoming out in the course of this year and a certain return to growth in 2010."
BANK LOANS
To help the banking system in the region, the EBRD said
last week it would invest 432.4 million euros in the eastern
and central European subsidiaries of Italy's UniCredit
Mirow said similar deals were in the works with Western parent banks in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Sweden. "We are talking to other banks. We have identified 12 parent banks in western Europe," he said.
Mirow declined to name the banks, but told Reuters: "All the connoisseurs know the names very well."
He said any similar deals to the Unicredit loan were likely to be agreed by the end of June, but none this week.
The EBRD, which operates in 30 countries including Mongolia and Turkey, holds its annual meeting in London on May 15-16.
Representatives of the bank's member countries, together with the European Union and European Investment Bank, will discuss how to deal with the crisis and manage its recovery.
Mirow told a news briefing the bank would bring forward its capital resources review by a year, for discussion at this year's meeting and approval next year.
The previous five-year review shifted the Bank's focus east and southeast, while eight countries which joined the EU in 2004 -- Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia -- were due to stop receiving EBRD funds in 2010.
One of the EBRD's former recipients of funds, the Czech Republic, has already graduated from recipient status.
But the current crisis may put plans on hold.
"These countries have other concerns than the one of when they will graduate," Mirow said. "Let's cope with the crisis, let's look at what the crisis has done to these countries and how the recovery looks and then we will discuss when and how."
Mirow said the EBRD had increased its level of commitment in these seven countries, particularly in the Baltic states, Poland and Hungary.
The EBRD joined the World Bank and the EIB in February in launching a 24.5 billion euro, two-year loan programme for central and eastern European banks and firms.
The bank will launch a new sustainable energy initiative this week, with plans to spend 5 billion euros ($6.82 billion) on sustainable energy projects over the next three years, Mirow told the briefing.
"We cannot save the world," he said. "We have to cooperate with others; this is what we are doing. In a lot of countries, we can make some difference, I think this is good enough." (Editing by James Dalgleish)