On November 13, 2022, at the invitation of the Military Attaches Service of the Military Intelligence Authority, Ambassador Dr. Ezzat Saad, ECFA Director, participated in a program of lectures for members of the Military Diplomatic Representation Course (Defense Attaches in Egyptian embassies abroad). Ambassador Saad gave a lecture on Egypt’s foreign policy trends, determinants, and features, as well as Egypt’s relations with the European continent in general and the European Union in particular, whereby he referred to the following:

1- The Egypt-EU Association Agreement, signed in 2001 and entered into force in 2004, as the contractual framework governing bilateral relations between Egypt and the European Union. The agreement regulates aspects of bilateral cooperation in the economic, trade, political, social, financial and technical fields. It is part of the European Neighborhood Policy aimed at strengthening the European Union’s relations with its southern and eastern neighboring countries.

2- Mechanisms of the Egypt-EU Association Agreement (Association Council – Association Committee – Subcommittees and their three groups and their meetings).

3- The Association priorities document for the period from 2021 to 2027, in which the priority areas of cooperation for both sides were identified, in addition to cooperation projects between Egypt and the European Union during that period, after the European Union introduced a new path for cooperation with Egypt during that period under the name of “Flagship Projects.” It includes strategic areas such as green hydrogen, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, transportation, local development, circular economy and water resources. These issues are among the main priorities for the European Union, and they largely converge with the Egyptian priorities included in the 2030 Development Agenda. There are also traditional priority cooperation projects during the same period (more than a hundred projects), divided into clusters in various fields, most notably agriculture, education, governance and the environment.

4- Development aid to Egypt from the European Union, which is estimated at about $1.7 billion during 2021, and the total volume of European support to Egypt, including the member states of the Union, is more than 11 billion euros in the form of grants, loans and debt exchanges, which made the European Union Egypt’s first partner. The European Union’s commitments to Egypt in the form of a grant amount to 1.3 billion euros. The EU has financed projects in Egypt in the form of grants worth 500 million euros during the period from 2017 to 2021 in many sectors within the framework of the partnership that binds the two sides.

5- The European Commission’s initiatives to enhance its cooperation with Egypt, such as the Green Deal – digital transformation and artificial intelligence, and the place of this cooperation in the “Global Gateway” initiative, especially with regard to infrastructure projects.