EU Ambassador to Cairo Ivan Surkosh expressed the European support for the mediating role performed by Kuwait between Qatar and the boycotting states, stressing that they work to keep their neutral position from the current crisis.
He expressed the European support for Egypt during its current fight against terrorism, stressing their condemnation to the terrorist operations that targeted the Egyptian targets during the recent period. He added that the European Union appreciates the meeting conducted between Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his European counterpart during his visit to Brussels.
He added the both EU and Egypt stressed the need for supporting their partnership during the current period and working together to push forward their strategic partnership. The European Ambassador pointed out that there are four areas agreed between the EU and Egypt during the partnership meeting.
He added that the first is the social and economic partnership, which includes cooperation in the field of energy, transport and exchange of experiences on the climate issue; secondly the field of governance, rule of law and administrative reform.
He added that that all these areas have been discussed with the Egyptian side and how to cooperate in the coming period, stressing that Egypt is an important country and that it will not stand beside it to achieve growth, stability and further prosperity in the future.
As for EU programs in Egypt, Ambassador Sorokosh said that the EU is implementing 250 projects in Egypt in several areas, such as water, sanitation and energy, through a grant of 1.3 billion euros, which shows that the EU is the largest donor to Egypt in the world.
"We spoke in a comprehensive dialogue about the crisis, how to confront migrants and help Egypt to host refugees, as discussed with Egypt in different opinions such as the involvement of NGOs, civil society organizations and health development," Sorokosh said.
He added that progress and prosperity in societies, stressing that these organizations partner with us not only in Egypt, but in the whole world.
The EU ambassador pointed out that the EU is an important trading partner with Egypt, where the volume of trade exchange with Egypt amounted to about 27 billion euros last year, stressing that the EU is ready until Egypt exports its products to the EU countries, In September during the visit of Engineer Tariq Qabil to Brussels.
On the economic reforms in Egypt, he said that "the Egyptian government's work with the IMF is very important and the difficult reform process should be followed because there is no other way." He pointed out that the EU aims to ease the suffering of economic reform on the population.