EU to sign €7.4 billion partnership agreement with Egypt

The European Union (EU) signs a partnership agreement for 7.4 billion euros with Egypt on Sunday, in the midst of an economic crisis, particularly in the areas of energy and migration, according to a European official, against a background concerns from NGOs on the migration aspect of the pact. This agreement will be signed at the end of the day in Cairo between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, alongside five European heads of state and governments.

It includes “five billion euros in loans including one billion paid before the end of 2024, 1.8 billion in investments, 400 million in aid for bilateral projects and 200 million in aid for programs dealing with migration issues “, detailed this senior European Commission official on condition of anonymity. This influx of funds – which will last until the end of 2027 – is a breath of fresh air for Egypt, which is currently going through the worst economic crisis in its history.

Cairo, which devotes a good part of its resources to repaying its external debt, which has tripled in a decade to reach nearly 165 billion dollars, is banking in particular on its natural gas to obtain revenue in dollars.

Natural gas and difficult region

The EU wants to “cooperate in the fields of energy, more particularly in the field of liquefied natural gas, to move further away from Russian gas”, affirmed the European official on this subject, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine. The European delegation in Egypt includes Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Italian Giorgia Meloni, major partners of Egypt in its gas fields in the Mediterranean. Also present at the signing of the agreement will be Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

The regional situation – first and foremost the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Sudan, bordering Egypt – will also be on the agenda. “Egypt is a crucial country for Europe, today and in the days to come”, because it has “an important position in a very difficult region, with borders with Libya, Sudan and the Strip of Gaza,” the senior European official explained to journalists in Cairo.

The EU therefore wants to cooperate with Egypt – 136th country out of 142 in the World Justice Project’s rule of law ranking – on “security, counter-terrorism and border protection, in particular the border south”, as “Egypt is under even more pressure from Sudan”. The Gaza Strip, where Israel is at war with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, “will not be the main focus of the discussion but will be part of it,” the official added.

Israel has increased the pressure on Egypt by moving ahead with its plans to invade Rafah, a Palestinian town on the border with Egyptian Sinai, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians, displaced by war, are crowded together. The migration aspect of the agreement is of the same type as that signed in July with Tunisia: the Europeans expect the countries of origin or transit of migrants to stop departures and to readmit their nationals in an irregular situation in the EU.

“Restriction of freedom”

For the NGO Refugees Platform in Egypt (RPE), the EU wants to “subcontract to North African countries, in particular Egypt (…) the restriction of the freedom of movement of migrants”. “The pattern is the same as that of the EU’s shaky agreements with Tunisia and Mauritania: stop migrants, ignore abuses,” warns Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The NGO claims to have “already recorded arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment inflicted by the Egyptian authorities on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as expulsions” to countries plagued by violence.

Three months before the elections to the European Parliament where polls predict a surge of the far right, European leaders are keen to display their firmness on irregular immigration. Egypt repeats that since 2016 no migrant boats have left its shores. Although boats no longer leave Egypt, Egyptians still arrive in Europe by sea, mostly from Libya or Tunisia to Italy. Frontex, the European Border Agency, has recorded in 2023 nearly 158,000 migrant arrivals in Europe via this route, the most dangerous in the world. An increase of 50% compared to 2022.