EU gives Egyptian military 20 mn euros to ‘enhance national and civilian security’

The European Peace Facility (EPF), a European Union entity aimed at strengthening the military and defense capacities of “partner” countries, approved on Tuesday an “assistance measure” to the Egyptian Armed Forces worth 20 million euros.

The military funding comes as part of Europe’s upgraded ties with Egypt that the EU announced in March, stating that the two parties were now acting within the framework of “strategic partnership” and launching a 7.4 billion euro funding package to the North African country in the form of grants and loans until the end of 2027.

Marking the biggest EU funding package to Egypt in history, the comprehensive program was aimed at addressing migration, energy and economic stability, among other issues. 

Hussein Baoumi, Amnesty International’s EU foreign policy advocate for the region, told Mada Masr that the military assistance is part of a series of deals which aim to curb migration via Egypt to Europe, as well as what he described as other, “deeper” aspects of EU-Egyptian relations.

According to the Tuesday EPF statement, the military assistance is geared toward the strengthening of the Armed Forces’s capacities in enhancing “national security and stability,” along with the  “protection of civilians.”

In its statement, the EU body focused on boosting the military's territorial control in the face of security threats across the country, namely in “the western region” along the Egypt-Libya border. 

Though the most important factor for the EU is controlling the border with Libya to curb migration, according to Baoumi, other essential factors include the fight against the trafficking of  commercial goods, arms, drugs and other contraband through Egypt’s western border. 

“This could be the first time that the EU, as an integrated union, [has provided] the Armed Forces with military aid, but it is not the first for a European country or entity to cooperate or provide weapons, funds or training to the Armed Forces,” Baoumi said. 

He referred to French military intelligence Operation Sirli, which was aimed at increasing the Egyptian military’s capabilities in managing the Egypt-Libya border. According to investigations conducted at the time, intelligence supplied by the French military was used to conduct airstrikes on supposed smugglers moving along the border.

In what Baoumi called the new “golden age” of EU-Egypt relations, part of the EU’s strategy is to strengthen the partnership with Egypt in security and defense as well as “combatting what the EU calls ‘informal migration.’”

Unregulated migration to Europe increased over the course of 2023, with most arrivals being Egyptian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals. Around 4,000 people died attempting the journey via the Mediterranean Sea over the same year.

But beyond migration, “the aim is to preserve the stability of the Egyptian system, or the status quo in Egypt,” Baoumi added, explaining that the EU’s notion of stability is more comprehensive than combatting migration.

In the announcement, the EPF framed the military funding as part of the EU’s Joint Declaration on the Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership with Egypt, signed in March, highlighting the significance of its security and defense priorities and the growing cooperation in these areas in the latest agreement. 

The funding package, announced in March, entails 5 billion euros in concessional loans for the macroeconomy in the form of conditional disbursements, 1.8 billion euros in investments, and a further 600 million euros in forthcoming grants, including 200 million euros specifically for migration-related issues.

The EPF also framed the funding as an illustration of the importance of the EU’s partnership with Egypt, which it said comes amid a “highly volatile regional context.”

The EU’s deal came after negotiations that took place amid the ongoing war between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces to Egypt’s south, and were accelerated at the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, as news emerged that Israel’s plans include a proposal to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Sinai. Egypt has repeatedly rejected the prospect of Palestinian mass displacement.

It also comes as Egypt continues to battle an entrenched economic crisis — which has seen years of revenue scarcity erode foreign asset holdings, pushing the government further into debt. 

While migration is the apparent aspect, the EU “wants to strengthen its relationship with Egyptian authorities in order to protect privileges to European countries and investments in the country  — especially in the extractive sectors, such as fuel and gold and so on," Baoumi said.

The EU advocacy officer questioned whether the union has conducted human rights risk assessments for the military funding. “What are the guarantees for it not to lead to any human rights violations ?” he added. 

While the EU funding comes alongside several other commitments by other international actors to Egypt amid its economic collapse, insiders on the EU-Egypt partnership previously told Mada Masr that the union’s plan is not yet clear.

“Everything related to the deal is extremely obscure, and parliamentary oversight is weak,” a member of  the European Parliament previously told Mada Masr, adding that while the Egyptian side can view it as economic assistance from the EU, the latter may primarily consider it a migration deal.

Established in 2021, the EPF finances EU assistance to non-European countries as well as regional and global organizations in the military and defense sectors, mainly funding African Union countries and, most recently, Ukraine in its war against Russia, with European interests in mind.

Since the 1980s, Egypt has received billions of dollars in military aid from the United States every year. Though the Biden administration has occasionally withheld portions of said aid due to widespread human rights violations by the Egyptian government, Egypt received the full stipulated amount of $1.3 billion this year in light of Israel's aggression on Gaza and its subsequent implications for US interests in the region.