For many years, EU involvement in
Egypt has been ineffective. A number of different EU bodies and
programmes, such as the Egypt Association Agreement, and particularly
the EU-Egypt Action Plan (under the European Neighbourhood Policy)
have offered Egypt massive amounts of funding, but have been
consistently useless. Primarily, these have been put in place as
measures to help Egypt obtain a democratic government, mainly during
the long-standing presidency of Hosni Mubarak, though the agendas
have continued to attempt to instil democracy in Egypt after the 2011
revolution. Only recently, however, has the ineffectiveness been
published in a report from the European Court of Auditors (ECA),
which has finally acknowledged that the EU’s policy on Egypt has
been fundamentally flawed, and claiming that “a more focussed
approach” is required. You would expect, therefore, that when
another uprising then took place, merely a matter of days after this
report was published, that the EU would be able to implement their
ongoing campaign for democracy in Egypt in a much more efficient and
concise manner.

 After the forceful removal of
Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi two weeks ago, overnight clashes
between Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, and the now in power army on
the 15th July resulted in the death toll from the violent
hostilities climbing to at least 99. Clearly, this verifies that
Egypt is, once again, in a state of political turmoil, and with the
interim government being sworn in just the day after clashes,
tensions with the Muslim Brotherhood will be further heightened,
especially after they labelled the new government “illegitimate”.
The EU has since been placed in the uncomfortable position of being
pressured to take a stance on recent events, and has the challenging
task of executing an effective course of action in Egypt. Brussels,
and EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, have responded by
releasing a number of conflicting statements and holding inconclusive
talks with Egyptian officials from both sides, without coming to an
effective or concrete conclusion on how to act.

Initially, the EU released a
statement deploring the use of violence as a method of conflict
resolution, with Ashton urging “all sides to rapidly return to
the democratic process, including the holding of free and fair
elections”. This clearly aligns with the EU’s ongoing call
for democracy in Egypt, however rather than build upon feedback from
the ECA’s report, no progress appears to have been made. Ashton’s
statement showed little evolution from the EU’s attitude in the
immediate wake of Mubarak’s resignation where they called for a
“transition towards democracy and for free and fair elections”.
A later statement singled out the new government by asking “all
sides, but particularly…the interim presidency…to reach out to
all political forces, and to move rapidly toward reconciliation”.
Of course, it will be impossible to return Morsi to power, but the EU
does acknowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood must be allowed a chance
to return to Egyptian politics if the country is going to continue on
its quest for democracy, and that the military must back down in
order for this to happen.

However, merely requesting the
re-instatement of the Muslim Brotherhood is not going to help to
improve Egypt’s governance, and the EU were seemingly reluctant to
make any practical efforts to ensure that this was done in the
aftermath of the uprising. Additionally, senior officials from
Brussels then went on to claim that Morsi had, in fact, never crossed
the boundary from a diplomatic reign to suppressing the liberty and
rights of the Egyptian people. This poses questions as to why, when
Morsi’s regime began to decline, did the EU not attempt to ensure
that his government remained democratic? Morsi did not enter the
presidency with Egypt in an idealistic political state, but a country
coming to terms with a transition from military rule. By guiding
Morsi away from an Islamist dominated government, and giving him the
right support to fix the political and economic situation, it is
possible that the EU could have helped to prevent the subsequent
uprisings.

The contradictory nature of the EU’s
position on Egypt then became evident, as they attempted to back up
the interim government by declaring that Morsi had led his regime
into “isolation” by actions epitomised by his move in
November 2012 to enable his government to make laws without the need
for legal confirmation, effectively giving himself unlimited power.
Clearly, this contradicts the previous idea that Morsi’s government
was not of an autocratic nature. Furthermore, while Ashton has called
for the release of “all those detained for political reason”,
there was not a direct request for the release of Mohammed Morsi
until just yesterday, and consequently it is not surprising that the
Muslim Brotherhood distinctly mistrusts the EU.

Moreover, recent propaganda from
sources claiming to be the Muslim Brotherhood appears to incite
religion inspired violence against the military, which they have
branded “the enemy of Islam”. Obviously, the EU does not
want to be associated with a group that have extremist sentiments,
and this could be a cause for opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Should this propaganda be proven to be from the Muslim Brotherhood,
it is possible that this could prompt a future reluctance to back
their return to politics, and as consequence the idea of an
autonomous representation of all parties in the political process
would be demolished.

Catherine Ashton’s visit to Cairo
yesterday has, once again, highlighted the unproductive nature of EU
influence in Egypt. Despite being the EU’s first act which shows an
intention to provide a proactive role, her statement after meeting
the new interim government is almost identical to what she said at
the outbreak of the uprising, and what the EU have unproductively
preached in Egypt for years. Once again, she talks of an “inclusive
process” and how Egypt needs to “find a way that those who
wish to participate in the future can do so”, obviously
referring to the Muslim Brotherhood. The only real step forward, as
previously mentioned, is that Ashton has now called for Morsi himself
to be released, though it was common knowledge that this was her
intention with her first statement.

It seems that despite the ECA’s
critical report on previous attempts to aid Egypt’s struggling
political position, the EU has not formulated an effective plan. On
top of the continued weakness of EU policy in Egypt, they have seemed
unwilling, or incapable, of taking the necessary steps to assist
Egypt to come through this difficult time of political disorder as
smoothly and as quickly as possible.