Source: AFP
The EU chief and five European leaders visited cash-strapped Egypt to announce a 7.4 billion euro economic package focused on boosting energy trade and curbing irregular migration flows to the 27-member bloc.
The deal will include billions in loans over the next few years to debt-ridden Egypt and increased energy sales that could help Europe “move further away from Russian gas,” a senior European Commission official said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — joined by the leaders of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece and Italy — met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ahead of the planned signing ceremony.
The Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership agreement includes loans of five billion euros over four years, 1.8 billion euros in investments and hundreds of millions for bilateral projects, including immigration, the official said on condition of anonymity.
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Egypt, mired in a painful economic crisis, borders war-torn Libya and the centers of two ongoing conflicts — the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Sudan’s war between regular armed forces and paramilitaries Rapid Support Forces.
“Egypt is a crucial country for Europe today and for the coming days,” said the Commission official, who pointed to Egypt’s “important position in a very difficult neighborhood, bordering Libya, Sudan and the Strip of Gaza”.
Egypt already hosts about nine million migrants and refugees, including four million Sudanese and 1.5 million Syrians, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
The EU official said the deal includes cooperation steps on “security, counter-terrorism cooperation and border protection, especially the southern one” with Sudan.
The Gaza Strip, where Israel has been at war with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack, “will not be the main focus, but will be part of the discussion” in Cairo, the official added.
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The delegation included three Mediterranean leaders — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, her Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cyprus President Nicos Christodoulides.
They are joined by Austrian Chancellor Karl Neuhammer and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
‘Cash-for-migration-control’
The agreement follows several controversial deals the EU has signed in north Africa — with Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania — to stem the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.
The EU’s border agency Frontex last year recorded almost 158,000 migrant arrivals in Europe via the dangerous sea route, up 50% on the previous year.
The trend has fueled growing anti-immigrant rhetoric in Europe and gains by right-wing populist parties in many EU nations.
Human rights groups have strongly condemned deals with authoritarian governments.
The US-based Human Rights Watch said it had documented “arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees by Egyptian authorities”.
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HRW criticized what it called “the cash approach to immigration control” which it said “strengthens authoritarian rulers while betraying human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and activists whose work involves great personal risk”.
Egypt emphasizes that migrant boats have not sailed from its shores in recent years. But Egyptians still reach Europe by sea, mostly via Libya or Tunisia to Italy.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, is in dire need of financial aid as it overcomes a severe economic crisis marked by rapid inflation.
The International Monetary Fund this month agreed to an $8 billion loan package after Cairo implemented reforms including a flexible exchange rate and raised interest rates.
Egypt’s economy, dominated by military-linked businesses and recently focused on major infrastructure projects, has been hit hard by a series of recent economic shocks.
Among them were the impact of the Covid pandemic on the tourism sector, higher prices for food imports amid the war in Ukraine and attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea that have cut into revenues from the Suez Canal.
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Egypt’s foreign debt has ballooned to nearly $165 billion, and servicing costs are expected to reach $42 billion this year.
Source: AFP