By Manal Abdel Fattah
Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met today with Wilva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, during his current visit to Brussels to head the Egyptian delegation to the meetings of the Participation Council between Egypt and the European Union.
In a statement by Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, the official spokesman and Director of the Public Diplomacy Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he stated that the Minister of Foreign Affairs reviewed in detail the comprehensive approach adopted by Egypt in dealing with immigration issues, including addressing the phenomenon from its various security and development aspects, and seeks to limit its repercussions through Address the root causes that drive them. Shoukry also highlighted the Egyptian side’s interest in strengthening bilateral cooperation with the European Union in the field of regular immigration and launching technical and vocational training and education programs to qualify Egyptian workers for the European labor market, thus contributing to reducing the phenomenon of illegal immigration in the long term.
In a related context, Sameh Shoukry highlighted during the meeting the challenges and burdens that Egypt bears in light of its hosting nine million refugees and immigrants who receive basic services like Egyptian citizens. From this standpoint, Shoukry noted the importance of increasing European support provided to Egypt in the field of immigration in a way that is proportionate to the burdens that Egypt bears and reflects the success achieved by the Egyptian model in combating illegal immigration, which resulted in stopping all illegal immigration boats heading from Egypt to Europe since 2016.
Ambassador Abu Zeid added that the discussion also touched on the repercussions of the crises in Sudan, Libya, and the occupied Palestinian territories, where Minister Shukri reviewed the political and security aspects of those crises, shedding light on the Egyptian efforts made by all national parties to deal with their repercussions. In connection with developments in the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Minister of Foreign Affairs renewed Egypt’s firm position regarding the continued rejection of the displacement of Palestinians outside their lands, indicating in this regard that any attempts to liquidate the Palestinian issue in this way were and will continue to be rejected by the Palestinians, internationally and by Egypt.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the European official were keen to exchange views on the mechanisms for implementing the agreed-upon cooperation projects, as Johansson praised this cooperation, and the issue of raising relations between Egypt and the European Union to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership was discussed, which the European Union foreign ministers confirmed during their meeting. With the Foreign Minister on Monday morning in Brussels, they expressed their full support for him. Both Mr. Sameh Shoukry and the European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration were keen to address the issue of migration in the strategic partnership in the discussions.
