Egypt expects to receive between $5-$6bn [€4.6-€6.5bn] in funding from the EU under a major ‘cash for migrant control’ pact which is set to be finalised this weekend.
That $5-6bn figure was spelt out by Cairo’s finance minister Mohamed Maait at a press conference on Monday (11 March). Later he added that the World Bank is expected to extend around $3bn [€2.6bn] in financing to Cairo, while further funds are expected from Japan and the International Monetary Fund.
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EU leaders are expected to sign off a long-awaited ‘cash for migrant control’ agreement with Egypt this weekend when European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is due to travel to Cairo with a group of national leaders including Belgian premier Alexander de Croo and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.
Although Maait did not give further details on the composition of the funding programme beyond saying that it would include public and private sector funding and involve the European Investment Bank, the sums would put Egypt alongside Morocco as the EU’s main partner in North Africa.
The agreement with Brussels is set to be a second major boost to Egypt’s finances in as many weeks.
Last week, Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s government agreed terms with the International Monetary Fund to increase its loan arrangement with the Fund from $3bn [€2.74bn] to $8bn after the Egyptian central bank said it would let its pound currency trade freely and hiked interest-rate by 600 basis points in a bid to stabilise the economy.
Although the EU commission agreed to provide up to €110m to Egypt for migration management programmes, the EU executive had conditioned wider economic support for Egypt’s economy on el Sisi’s government agreeing to a reform agenda with the IMF.
However, though the talks with Cairo, which began last autumn, have been marketed by European leaders as being primarily about migration control, the number of irregular departures from the Egyptian coast has dropped to about 1,000 per month.
According to the most recent data published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), there are over 100,000 Egyptian migrants in neighbouring Libya.
Egypt is also in talks with the IMF on $1-$1.2bn in climate finance under the fund’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility.
