The EU's big bet
Mar 20, 2024
Cairo [Egypt], March 20: The amount of money the EU gives Egypt under this agreement is 7.5 billion euros, far exceeding the 3 billion euros the EU signed with Turkey , 700 million euros signed with Tunisia and 210 million euros with Mauritania.
The same thing here is that the EU spends money on the above countries to prevent the flow of refugees and migrants into the EU through socio-economic development and border control of the above countries.
For the EU, Egypt is the most special that is why it is given so much money. This country is currently in a very difficult economic and financial situation. Inflation is very high. Foreign debt is huge. The risk of the state defaulting on debt is not unrealistic. Egypt is again close to the Hamas-Israel conflict.
The EU cannot help but be deeply concerned about Egypt becoming the starting point for a wave of refugees and migrants entering the EU, including refugees and migrants from African countries and Palestinians from war zones. and the Egyptians themselves. The EU spends money to revive Egypt in terms of socio-economic development so that this country prevents migrants and refugees from flocking to the EU.
In essence, the agreements between the EU and Egypt or with Turkey, Tunisia and Mauritania are all about using money to push the refugee and migration problem away from EU borders, so that the bloc has time to handle it early. when refugees and migrants have not yet set foot in the EU and have not caused internal problems in member countries. That is a big bet for the EU because success or failure is not proactively decided by the EU but depends on its partners. And in fact, with the three countries Türkiye, Tunisia and Mauritania, it has shown that some results have been achieved but not as certain as expected.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper