The European Union (EU) will sign this Sunday a partnership agreement for 7.4 billion euros with Egypt, plunged into its worst economic crisis, mainly loans spread out until 2027, but also aid and investments, said a European official.
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The agreement includes “ 5 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 agreement will be signed in Cairo between the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyenalongside five European heads of state and governments.
The EU wants 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. The EU also wants to work with theEgypt on ” security, counterterrorism and border protection, particularly the southern border “, seen that “ Egypt is under even more pressure from Sudan » at war for almost a year. Also included in the European delegation in Egypt are Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Ministers Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Italian Giorgia Meloni, major partners of Egypt in its gas fields in the Mediterranean.
The migration aspect of the agreement is of the same type as that signed in July 2023 with Tunisia: the Europeans expect the countries of origin or transit of migrants to stop departures and readmit their nationals in an irregular situation in the EU. For the NGO Refugees Platform in Egypt (RPE), the European Union wants “ subcontract to North African countries, particularly Egypt […] restricting the freedom of movement of migrants “.
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.
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