Europe hosts Sisi at ‘strategic partnership’ summit expected to pave way for disbursal of 4 billion euros

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi landed in Brussels on Tuesday to attend the European and Egyptian leaders summit, an event where he is expected to sign off on an agreement paving the way for the disbursal of 4 billion euros in loans, a source informed on the Brussels talks told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. 

The source said that the memorandum of understanding is to cover the entire remaining amount of the existing aid agreement between the two sides and will include details on how the tranches are to be disbursed. 

The sum is the remainder of a 7.4 billion euro financing package, the largest Europe has ever granted to a non-EU state, which the two sides committed to last year as part of a “strategic partnership” agreement. 

European parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations from Cairo and further afield have raised a call for European officials to take the opportunity to pressure Egyptian authorities for clear steps to improve rights conditions in the country. 

But the talks in the Belgian capital, as per the day’s agenda, are to range from a “networking cocktail” with business and financing partners to political talks touching on future plans for the Gaza Strip and other regional issues, with the aim, as European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) fellow Antony Dworkin told Mada Masr, for the European Union to upgrade its political relationship via a closer economic partnership. 

Alongside Egypt’s central role in mediating negotiations over the future of the Gaza Strip, it is due to its role in conflicts in Sudan, Libya and the Red Sea that “the union is keen to hear the Egyptian leadership's assessment of all of these issues and to learn about the diplomatic efforts Egypt is making to resolve these crises” Egypt’s ambassador to the EU, Ahmed Abu Zeid, wrote in a double-page spread for state-owned daily Al-Ahram published Tuesday.

Dworkin, too, said that the EU’s commitment to bolster ties with Egypt springs from the centrality of Cairo’s role in regional diplomacy, namely in the Gaza ceasefire agreement, as well as in subsequent plans for stabilising and rebuilding Gaza and ultimately work for Palestinian-Israeli political settlement. 

European Council President Antonio Costa, who attended the multilateral Peace Summit in Sharm al-Sheikh earlier this month and is hosting Sisi in Brussels alongside EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, expressed the EU’s appreciation for “Egypt’s stabilising role in the Middle East region and its mediation role in the Gaza conflict,” in a press release ahead of the day’s events.

She said the summit will be “an excellent opportunity” for Europe to deepen partnership with Egypt and cooperate in addressing "common challenges.”

Investment partnerships 

Heading the Egyptian delegation for what the presidential spokesman called a “first of its kind,” Sisi is travelling with his ministers of foreign affairs, investment and economic development to attend proceedings in Belgium. 

These are set to include discussions among Egyptian-EU political and business leaders in the presence of representatives from financial institutions, industry associations and business pioneers. 

Primary areas for potential trade and investment partnerships include renewable energy and green hydrogen, where Europe is keen to partner with North Africa, Dworkin said.

“It makes sense for the EU to seek to strengthen its relations with Egypt, because improvements in the Egyptian economy will help Europe as well as Egypt's population,” said Dworkin, indicating Europe’s concerns that economic instability in Egypt could increase the number of people seeking to migrate to Europe. 

In the initial financing package agreed to last year, 5 billion euros were to be granted in the form of budgetary loans payable until 2027, 1.8 billion euros were to be in investments and a further 600 million euros in forthcoming grants, including 200 million euros specifically for migration-related issues

Over 11,500 Egyptian nationals were among the more than 100,000 people who attempted to reach Europe via informal migration routes in the Mediterranean in 2024.

The routes are dangerous and often deadly, with over 100 Egyptian nationals killed in 2023 when a boat carrying over 600 people capsized off the coast of Greece, an incident that survivors and documented evidence shows could have been mitigated or even avoided by intervention from the Greek coast guard.

Funding, however, has primarily been allocated to trying to prevent departures from Egypt, with a sample of over 300 cases reviewed by Mada Masr demonstrating that authorities have used “recycling,” a practice of creating new investigations to cycle the same defendants through endless rounds of prosecution-mandated remand detention, to bolster claims that it is effectively combatting migration.

Ahead of the summit, the Egyptian president met with the European Commission’s Vice President Kaja Kallas in Brussels, where he stressed the importance of strengthening ties with Europe, also taking the opportunity to underline his country’s commitment to a “balanced and prudent policy” aimed at fostering security and stability amid instability in the Middle East. 

Sisi also noted during the meeting that Europe “has not been significantly affected” by the repercussions of informal migration due to Egypt's great efforts in that regard, namely its success in preventing the departure of boats from Egyptian coasts since 2016. 

Over the past year, Europe has also paid out 20 million euros in military funding as part of the upgraded ties with Egypt, along with 1 billion euros in economic assistance. 

The disbursement of future tranches is “subject to Egypt’s satisfactory implementation of the International Monetary Fund programme and other policy measures to be agreed” to in a memorandum, said a March statement from the European Parliament. 

For the ECFR fellow, European policymakers should not turn a blind eye to the persistent problems with Egypt's economy, namely the “heavy dominance of the army and regime-linked firms.” 

Arguing that Egypt’s economic reforms have been slow, the official noted that European leaders should stress that increased cooperation with Egypt depends on the latter’s commitment to its promises, warning that, if not, it could lead to the European financing only delaying another crisis in Egypt. 

On Egypt’s human rights record 

While the European Parliament has said that future payouts will “assess steps” taken by Egypt’s authorities “to shore up democratic mechanisms and the rule of law and to protect human rights in the country,” European Commission officials did not comment on rights in the lead-up to the summit.

Dworkin anticipated that EU officials would be satisfied with “enough that they can call progress” in this regard.

Yet calls resurfaced days ahead of Wednesday’s summit among European politicians and non-governmental organizations in Cairo, Europe and the US for EU leaders to use the summit to apply pressure to Egypt’s authorities to address ongoing human rights violations. 

In a letter to von der Leyen on Monday, several members of the European Parliament called on the European Commission head to take the summit as an opportunity to clearly express Europe’s “concrete expectations” of Egypt in regards to human rights, as it was not cleared out beforehand. 

“Don't roll out the red carpet for Al-Sisi, but demand change during Wednesday's summit,” MEP Tineke Strik, one of the letter’s signatories, said on her X account. 

Human Rights Watch joined eleven non-governmental organizations to note ongoing human rights violations by Egyptian authorities in a statement on Tuesday where they urged EU leaders to recognize the central role of human rights to the summit’s objectives of “shared stability and prosperity.”

While the statements quoted a number of improvements in Egypt’s human rights file in the past months, including the release of writer, programmer and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and Sisi’s exceptional return of the criminal procedures draft law to the Parliament, they however criticized the House’s failure to introduce amendments that would bring the bill in line with international law.

The sharpest disagreement around the law centered on protections for defendants, particularly the last-minute introduction of terms to allow prosecuting authorities to interrogate suspects without a lawyer being present. 

Opposition MPs and the head of the Lawyers Syndicate objected to the article, arguing that it violates the Constitution.

“Europe should use its leverage to secure concrete, overdue reforms to ensure the Egyptian government is accountable to its people and committed to respect and fulfill their rights,” said Claudio Francavilla, EU Associate Director at Human Rights Watch.