The EU-Egypt relations report summarizes the progress in their relationship in 2009. It notes that Egypt made encouraging progress in economic and sector reforms but less progress in political reforms. While technical cooperation progressed in many areas, more work is still needed, especially in democratization and human rights. Both Egypt and the EU want to enhance their relations and are exploring ways to strengthen cooperation, with continued human rights progress being important. Bilateral trade between the EU and Egypt slowed in 2009 compared to 2008.
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The EU and Egypt
1. Country press pack
The EU and Egypt
Progress in relations – ENP Progress Report 2009
Overall progress on the implementation of the Action Plan in 2009 is encouraging, with a strong
commitment to social, economic and sector reforms, and to a lesser extent to political reform. Egypt continued
to be active in the different sectoral sub-committee meetings, enabling wide-ranging and fruitful discussions to
take place on the implementation of priorities set down in the Association Agreement and the Action Plan. In
many technical areas progress is encouraging, while much work still lies ahead.
Concerns remain on the pace of the implementation of reforms in the field of democratisation and human
rights, although the Egyptian Government seems increasingly convinced of the need to tackle governance
issues as part of its domestic reform agenda.
Moving towards enhanced relations is a shared objective of both Egypt and the EU. In April 2009, Egypt and
the EU jointly decided to work towards enhancing relations; an ad hoc group was created to consider ways to
do so, present policy options for strengthening bilateral relations, and explore possibilities for incorporating the
results of reflections into the ENP Action Plan. Continued and consolidated progress in areas related to human
rights and democracy will be an important foundation for enhanced relations.
Egypt was co-president of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) throughout 2009 (its two year term ends
in mid-2010).
Bilateral trade between Egypt and the EU slowed down compared with 2008: Egypt’s exports to the EU in
2009 contracted by 26.2% and EU exports to Egypt decreased by 0.9%. Total trade was €18.7 billion. The EU
is by far the first trading partner for Egypt (1/3 of Egypt’s overall trade). Egypt is also a major trading partner for
the EU in the Southern Mediterranean region (0.8% of total EU trade).
2009 Egypt country progress report http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/progress2010/sec10_517_en.pdf
Egypt’s National Indicative Programme (NIP)
The overall budget allocation for bilateral EU assistance to Egypt under the European Neighbourhood and
Partnership Instrument (ENPI) for 2011-2013 has been proposed at €449.29 million, according to the country’s
National Indicative Programme (NIP). This is an average of €149.76 million per annum, which represents a
5.4% increase compared to the previous programming period.
The allocation is divided between the three Country Strategy Paper (CSP) priorities:
• Supporting reforms in the areas of democracy, human rights, good governance and justice;
• Developing the competitiveness and productivity of the economy;
• Ensuring the sustainability of the development process with effective social, economic and
environmental policies and better management of natural resources.
ENPI Info Centre Egypt NIP wrap up