by Nurat Uthman
The European Union, which seeks to stem irregular migrant arrivals, and cash-strapped Egypt were Sunday due to sign a 7.4 billion euro ($8 billion) package of loans, grants and energy cooperation deals.
It will include billions in credit over coming years and deals to step up Egyptian energy imports to help Europe “move further away from Russian gas” amid the Ukraine war, a senior European Commission official told reporters.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen —who was to be joined in Cairo by the government leaders of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece and Italy—was to sign the package later in the day with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The agreements includes five billion euros in loans over four years, 1.8 billion euros in investment and hundreds of millions for bilateral projects including on migration, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Egypt, mired in a painful economic crisis, borders war-battered Libya and two ongoing conflicts — the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Sudan’s war between the regular armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
“Egypt is a critical country for Europe today and for the days to come,” said the commission official.
The official pointed to Egypt’s “important position in a very difficult neighborhood, bordering Libya, Sudan and the Gaza Strip.”
Egypt already hosts around 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 steps to cooperate on “security, counter-terrorism cooperation and protection of borders, in particular the southern one” with Sudan.
The Gaza Strip, where Israel is at war with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since the October 7 attack, “will not be the main focus but will be part of the discussion” in Cairo, the official added.
The high-powered delegation was to include three Mediterranean leaders —Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, her Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides.
They were to be joined by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
The agreement follows other controversial deals the EU has sealed in northern 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 nearly 158,000 migrant arrivals in Europe via the dangerous sea route, up by 50 percent on the previous year.
The aim is to limit arrivals at a time of rising anti-immigrant rhetoric in Europe and of right-wing populist political parties in several EU nations.
Human rights groups have strongly condemned past deals with authoritarian governments.
US-based Human Rights Watch said it had documented “arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees by Egyptian authorities.”
HRW again criticized what it labeled “the EU’s cash-for-migration-control approach” which it said “strengthens authoritarian rulers while betraying human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and activists whose work involves great personal risk.”
Egypt stresses that migrant boats have not sailed from its coast in recent years. But Egyptians still arrive in Europe by sea, mostly via Libya or Tunisia to Italy.
Highly indebted Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, is in dire need of financial help as it weathers a severe economic crisis marked by rapid inflation.
The International Monetary Fund this month agreed an $8 billion loan package after Cairo implemented a flexible exchange rate and raised interest rates.
Egypt’s economy, dominated by military-linked enterprises and focused on infrastructure mega-projects, has been hit hard by a series of recent economic shocks.
Among them have been the Covid pandemic’s impact on tourism, higher prices for food imports amid the Ukraine war, and attacks by Yemen’s Huthi rebels on Red Sea shipping that have slashed Suez Canal revenues.
Egypt’s external debt has ballooned to nearly $165 billion, and the cost of servicing it is expected to reach $42 billion this year.
