Mitsotakis, other EU leaders to talk migration in Cairo Sunday
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, along with five more European leaders, will travel to Cairo Sunday.
The other leaders are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and the Prime Ministers of Belgium, Alexander De Croo, and Italy, Giorgia Meloni.
Mitsotakis’ bilateral meeting with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will take place at 1:15 p.m. All leaders will meet together at 2:30 p.m. to be joined later by the full delegations of the participating countries. The leaders will make statements to the press at 5:15 p.m.
The agenda of the meeting has not been fully revealed. The situation in Gaza will vertainly be on the menu, but the most important item is expected to be migration. It is not known whether a migration deal, along the lines of one signed with Tunisia in July 2023, will be finalized Sunday or whether more negotiations will be needed. It has been reported that the EU is ready to provide Egypt with €7.4 billion for its economy, especially the energy sector, and for migration and border management.
Human rights advocates have criticized the deal with Tunisia, and the upcoming one with Egypt, as aiming to restrict migration and negotiated with authoritarian regimes.
European Commissioners discussed migration in Strasbourg earlier this week and the European Council will take up the issue next week. The EU is anxious to curb and control migrant flows from Middle East and Africa and certainly does not want to see massive movements of the kind that happened in 2015. As Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said to the press after the Strasbourg meeting on March 12, “Europe is and will remain a continent of asylum. But we will manage migration in an orderly way, and on our terms.” At least, that is the goal.
