The European Union has signed a €7.4 billion agreement with Egypt covering the economy, energy, migrants and security: but is Al Sisi a reliable partner?
After Tunisia, Egypt — and always with Italy playing a leading role as a bridge between Europe and North Africa. The European Union, over the past weekend, signed an agreement with Egypt, a strategic partnership that sets out a series of objectives and areas of cooperation, from politics to the economy, and of course including the question of migration and the security of the region, the Mediterranean, but also the neighbouring Middle East.
In particular, the agreement with Egypt, signed in person by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who travelled to Cairo accompanied by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the leaders of Greece and Belgium, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Alexander De Croo, allocates €7.4 billion to support Egypt's economic stability and development: stability and development that will be fundamental for Al Sisi's regime to be able to face the multiple challenges at the centre of which it finds itself at this historical juncture.
Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea and is one of the countries with the largest migration flows towards Europe (unaccompanied minors in particular); it is heavily involved in the tensions in the Middle East, with the enormous pressure of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip crowded at the Rafah crossing as a result of Israel's siege, and its stability is also fundamental for a large number of neighbouring African countries. The agreement with Egypt rests on six fundamental pillars. The first concerns political relations and aims to strengthen ties between the EU and Egypt, based "on the values of fairness, mutual respect and trust".
The second concerns economic stability and provides for a three-year aid plan for Cairo worth €7.4 billion to support the country's economic stability and development. Europe commits to supporting Egypt's 2030 Development Agenda to ensure stability and sustainable economic growth, offering financing for reforms and the attraction of private investment, and to providing support to address global and regional economic pressures through dialogue with the International Monetary Fund.
The third pillar concerns investment and trade: the agreement with Egypt promotes sustainable investment (up to €5 billion for renewable energy, agriculture, water, food security and digitalisation) and trade between the two parties. On the question of water, the parties will work together towards sustainable management of water resources, with a focus on the River Nile and climate change.
The European Union and Egypt — and this is a subject particularly close to Italy's heart — will work together to manage migration flows, tackling irregular ones and expanding legal ones. The European Union will assist Egypt with programmes linked to migration, including border management and the reintegration of refugees, through an approach based on partnership and shared responsibility.
As regards the security chapter, the agreement acknowledges the "geostrategic role of Egypt as a pillar of security, moderation and peace in the Mediterranean region, the Near East and Africa", and "joint efforts" will be deployed to counter security threats, including terrorism.
The final point concerns skills and human capital: in this regard, Europe commits to supporting the educational standards and technical and vocational training of young Egyptians, and to developing labour mobility programmes, seasonal worker programmes and ongoing support for the socioeconomic reintegration of returning Egyptian migrants in Egypt. In addition, cooperation on research and innovation will be intensified, along with projects such as Erasmus+ and other initiatives designed for the exchange of experiences between Italian and Egyptian universities.
All of this, naturally, on paper. Because while it may be true, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Cairo, that with Egypt "we share strategic interests in the stability and prosperity" of the entire region, it is equally true that Al Sisi's Egypt can hardly be considered a "reliable" partner with whom to work together "to promote democracy, fundamental freedoms, human rights and gender equality" as the preamble of the agreement with Egypt states: Italy in particular ought to know this well, not least because of the Giulio Regeni case, the researcher from Friuli who was brutally killed in Cairo in 2016 and for whose death Al Sisi has always obstructed the search for the truth (to the point that the trial of four Egyptian intelligence agents is today being held in absentia, as the accused are being kept hidden in Egypt).
Highlighting the doubts surrounding this agreement in recent hours have been many MEPs from the committees on human rights, justice and foreign affairs, who were already highly critical of the recent agreement with Tunisia: "It seems we are funding dictators across the region. And that is not the Europe we want to see. That is not the place the EU should occupy in the world," said, for example, French MEP Mounir Satouri. Concerns shared by many non-governmental organisations: Human Rights Watch stated that the agreement "rewards Egypt's autocratic leader", Al Sisi, who "rules with an iron fist, crushing opposition, jailing critics and stifling the media and civil society. Now this abysmal repression is being rewarded with new support from the EU".
But things are also stirring in Italy: while Prime Minister Meloni expresses "satisfaction at the role Italy has played in this new model of cooperation between Europe and the southern shore of the Mediterranean, which has become a model we already launched with the memorandum of understanding with Tunisia", Emergency is unequivocal, and speaks of a script already seen before: "Behind the usual words — combating human traffickers, launching regular migration pathways — lies, in practice, what we have already seen with Libya and Tunisia: millions in funding to outsource border control to unsafe countries where not even the most basic rights can be guaranteed." All of this, the final emphasis runs, financed with public money.
