Egypt is going through a serious economic crisis and as an immediate result there is an anomalous migratory flow towards Europe. The latest official statistics on Egypt's poverty rate estimate that nearly a third of the country lives below the poverty line. The austerity measures imposed by Sisi have driven a deep chasm between the state-backed elites and the rising number of Egyptian citizens who are now struggling to survive.
The Egyptian pound has lost more than a third of its value against the US dollar this year (1 dollar is worth 24 Egyptian pounds – according to the December 23 exchange).
Added to this is the context of stagnation of the situation in Libya, considered a main passage for the irregular migration of Africans to Europe, including Egyptians. It is above all Europe that pays the price and the European agency is setting the bar for the situation Frontex which days ago drafted its bulletin on irregular migrants: in the first 11 months of 2022, approximately 308.000 Guests have illegally crossed the external borders of the European Union, with an increase in 68% compared to the same period in 2021, the highest level since 2016, according to the agency.
The agency added that i Western Balkans were once again the "most active migration route to the European Union", registering around 140.000 illegal crossings in the region, an increase of 152% compared to 2021. This year also in Greece e Cyprus about 17.000 people arrived.
Also 'Italy is experiencing a significant increase in the arrival of irregular migrants, the Ministry of the Interior recorded the arrival of more than 98.000 migrants on boats in mid-December, compared to around 63.000 between January and December 2021. In recent days they have been circulating on social media video clips showing scenes of Egyptian immigrants crowding in front of the police station in the city of Milan, to present their documents for asylum applications.
On December 25, theEgypt's Official News Agency (ASA) released a report on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' efforts to secure national interests and goals abroad while preserving Egypt's national interests.
The report by Egypt's official news agency focused, in part, on what it described as "the central role of Egypt in consolidating stability in the Middle East and Africa, especially in the context of the fight against illegal immigration and terrorism".
A prominent Egyptian politician and former party leader told Al-Araby Al Jadeed: Egyptian foreign policy, since Sisi came to power in 2014, has relied heavily on the use of the irregular migrant card to receive aid from Europe".
At the end of October, theXNUMX-XNUMX business days signed the latest in a series of deals with Egypt aimed at curbing migration, with an 80 million euro grant to strengthen Egypt's coast guard and navy.
The funding also includes, according to a document released by the European Union Commission in early November, the purchase of monitoring equipment such as search and rescue vessels, thermal cameras and satellite positioning systems.
The document states that Egypt “it is seeing (heavy influxes) of migrants in the medium to long term due to regional instability, climate change, demographic shifts and declining economic opportunities”.
The Egyptian politician points out that “lucrative European funding for Egypt's security forces has declined slightly in the recent period, as Western efforts to stop the smuggling networks, which are now mainly based in Libya, have weakened. He then added: "Last March, the German military announced the suspension of a controversial training program for members of the Libyan Coast Guard, formed by militias along the country's coast, due to their arbitrary treatment of migrants.
The document, published by the European Union, states that Egypt “has so far addressed irregular migration mainly from a security perspective, sometimes at the expense of other dimensions of migration management, including the protection of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.”
The document indicates that the program “seeks to develop the capacity of the Egyptian Ministry of Defence, governmental institutions and relevant civil society actors to adopt rights-based approaches to border management, oriented towards the protection and observance of gender differences in border administration”.