Egyptian-German relations going towards more cooperation and openness to Africa

Mervat Zakaria

President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi arrived in Germany on Sunday to participate in the Berlin Initiative for Partnership with Africa, as well as to strengthen cooperation with the German business community and attract investments.

The Egypt and Germany also agreed to launch new agreements to double the German support for technical and basic education in Egypt. They also agreed on establishing an alliance between the Ministry of Higher Education and German Applied Universities.

It is worth mentioning that the issues of illegal immigration and the confronting terrorism were one of the topics which were discussed during a round table between President Sisi and German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, as Egypt is one of the main forces supporting stability in the Middle East.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his country’s keenness to strengthen cooperation with Egypt in various fields, as well as supporting its efforts in the pursuit of sustainable development.

In this report, we will discuss the German initiative for partnership with Africa, as well as the most important issues raised on the sidelines of the visit, especially boosting the economic cooperation between Egypt and Germany, fight against terrorism and illegal immigration, and the partnership in the field of technical and basic education.

First: The German Initiative for Partnership with Africa under the «G20»
The German Initiative for Partnership with Africa aims at intensifying cooperation in sustainable economic development, encouraging investment, increasing the use of renewable energy, employing youth and contributing to digital education for girls and women, in cooperation with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.

The initiative includes measures to improve the financial environment in order to encourage investment and ensure generating reliable tax revenues. The experts who participated in Tanzania workshop in October 2017 agreed to establish the African Academy for the Investigation of Financial and Tax Crimes in Kenya, which aims to combat illegal financial flows.
In addition to the above, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited the President Sisi to attend this summit for the second time in recognition of Egypt’s role in Africa. President Sisi also delivered a speech on Egypt’s vision of advancing and promoting development efforts in Africa, especially as Egypt will head the African Union next year.

At the same time, President Sisi stressed at the 2018 Summit that this Summit is expected to provide practical steps and effective actions to the development process in Africa, working on growing partnerships with international institutions and creating a favorable environment for attracting investments in Africa in a sustainable way. This is in addition to creating job opportunities to achieve people’s hopes in finding decent livelihoods and reducing the continent’s problems.

Second: The most prominent files on the agenda during the President’s visit
A number of issues were discussed by President Sisi and Merkel. This can be illustrated as follows:

1- Intensifying economic cooperation and attracting investments

The German Minister of Economic and Development Cooperation Gerd Muller said that his country is keen on strengthening cooperation with Egypt in the field of development, especially in view of the Egypt’s continental and regional importance. He stressed that the successes achieved by Cairo during the past period are evidences for Egypt’s desire to push forward development and reform.

The two sides agreed to enhance cooperation between the two countries in Africa, including the promotion of development efforts in the societies and countries of the continent. In this context, Africa is a continent of promising opportunities for German companies, especially in the field of infrastructure, which contributes to increasing economic and social development rates.

Egypt is the most important trading partner for Germany in North Africa and the third in the Arab region. Cairo, currently, needs economic cooperation, as well as attracting German investments to finance a range of projects that are top priorities for leadership and society, including infrastructure, Suez Canal development, land reclamation Production and distribution of electricity, as well as the expansion of renewable energy projects.

On the other hand, the two sides also discussed the importance of extending cooperation to the areas of transport and manufacturing, and workers training in small and medium enterprises as well as military fields, in particular to support the combat capabilities and technical forces of the Egyptian Navy to provide safe navigation.

Statistics show that 1,048 German companies operate in Egypt as of July 31, 2017. The volume of trade in the same year amounted to 5.82017 billion euros, compared with 5.3 billion euros in 2016. The trade volume reached 2.78 billion dollars during the first seven months of 2018. Egyptian investments in Germany exceeded $46.1 million, while Egyptian investments in Berlin are based on the fields of medicines, furniture, medical equipment and tourism.

2. Combating terrorism and illegal immigration
Germany is suffering from a large number of immigrants, especially from the Middle East and the Arab region. Thousands of people have poured into Europe since the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011. The Austrian Chancellor and his German counterpart opened their borders to migrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Benefiting from German experience in technical and basic education
Egypt is seeking to expand the establishment of German schools, which enjoy a good reputation due to its excellent educational level. There are 7 German schools in Egypt, which the state wants to increase to 10, and 50 new schools for technical education. The Egyptian delegation also discussed with the German government what Egypt would offer to promote such cooperation like land to establish new schools or grants to develop and manage schools according to the German system.

“Egypt is in dire need of changing the social outlook and improving the image of technical education, which Germany calls dual education as equal to university education,” said German Ambassador to Cairo Julius Georg Luy.

In conclusion, the Egyptian-German talks during the visit of President Sisi to Berlin resulted in a number of concessions, the most important of which are: the agreement to increase the rate of economic investments between the two countries, especially in some new fields such as renewable energy, as well as cooperation with Egypt in issues of illegal immigration and combating Terrorism, in addition to signing a number of agreements to benefit from the German experience in the field of technical and basic education