Cash for Cairo On Wednesday (1 November), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the evacuation of EU citizens and other foreign nationals, as well as injured persons via the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
This is likely to be just the start of a refugee crisis with eerie similarities to the one that followed the Syrian civil war.
Egypt controls Gaza’s only non-Israeli border, which includes the Rafah crossing and its role in managing the fallout from the war was high on the agenda of last week’s EU summit.
For the moment, the EU finds itself facing a diplomatic tug-of-war.
Ahead of the summit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to convince European leaders to put pressure on Egypt to accept refugees from Gaza. That was rejected as unrealistic by most EU statesmen given that the Egyptian government has repeatedly rejected the idea.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has stated that his country rejects “any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region”.
That said, the Rafah crossing and others are almost certain to see tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Gaza in the coming weeks, possibly many more.
The Syrian civil war paved the way for the €6 billion ‘cash for migrants’ deal between the EU and Turkey. A similar agreement with al-Sisi is likely to be concluded in the coming weeks, though it will be closer in size to the €785 million migration control pact struck with Tunisia in July.
Egypt’s economic crisis adds to the sense of urgency for an EU financial support package.
Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Egyptian debt in October on the back of growing concerns about its debt affordability. The International Monetary Fund has warned that Egypt’s foreign exchange reserves will continue to tumble unless it devalues its currency, which has already lost half its value since March. Unemployment is cripplingly high.
The EU has been quick to recognise that Egypt will need major financial and political support if it is to bear the brunt of a refugee crisis.
The IMF and World Bank have also signalled their willingness to provide economic support, while the United States is likely to unblock military aid which had been frozen because of human rights abuses by al-Sisi’s regime.
Officials in Brussels have indicated that food imports, specifically Ukrainian grain, could be part of a broad package of economic support in exchange for Egypt controlling its borders in the event of a surge in migratory flows from Gaza. That is likely to be supplemented with direct budget support and finance for border controls and infrastructure projects.
The prospect of Egypt’s economic collapse should focus minds. Without a buffer state, the likes of Greece, Malta and Italy could face a new wave of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. With the European election campaign just a couple of months away, that would be a new nightmare for von der Leyen and other EU leaders. | 