CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with the European Union on previously agreed financing worth 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in the second half of the year, Planning Minister Rania al-Mashat said on Wednesday.
The financing is part of a 7.4 billion euro funding package agreed between Egypt and the EU in March last year, as European states sought to shore up Egypt’s economy and limit future migration across the Mediterranean.
Mashat told a press conference that a visiting EU delegation had been involved in talks about the funding with Egyptian authorities since the start of March. She said she expected the financing to be adopted by the bloc’s 27 members in June.
Egypt received the first tranche of the package, amounting to 1 billion euros, in January. The rest of the 5 billion euros in loan funding, known as macro-financial assistance, needs to be approved by the European parliament as well as member states.
The 7.4 billion in funding also includes investments and grants and was partly a response to Egypt’s deteriorating financial situation after the outbreak of the Gaza war, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and fallout from the war in Ukraine.
Egypt also signed a record investment deal with the United Arab Emirates last year and secured an expansion of its programme with the International Monetary Fund, now worth $8 billion.
($1 = 0.9272 euros)
(Reporting and Writing by Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by Toby Chopra and Aidan Lewis)
