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Issued by: Refugee Platform in Egypt
Date: October 22nd, 2025
The Refugees Platform in Egypt is monitoring the European-Egyptian High Level Summit taking place in Brussels today, on October 22nd, 2025, which is a continuation of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement between the European Union and the Egyptian government announced in March 2024.
This partnership is the latest in a series of agreements that began with the signing of the foundational partnership agreement in June 2001, which came into effect in 2004, along with the adoption of the Neighborhood Policy Action Plan in 2007. By extending partnership agreements that pertain to ‘migration governance and border control’ from 2017 to present-day, including the recent announcement of the ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ in March 2024 that included a financial package of €7.4 billion for a period spanning 2024 to 2027, of which €4 billion was allocated in the form of financial assistance (loans); €1.8 billion in the form of additional investments; and €600 million in the form of grants, €200 million was earmarked specifically for migration management. The signing of updated agreements worth €4 billion under the second tranche of the package was recently announced during the summit.
Although this agreement and its partnership extension are presented in mainstream and formal European discourse as ‘support for stability and development’, in reality this recent agreement finances mechanisms of repression and human rights violations against both Egyptian citizens and non-Egyptian citizens from various countries being hosted by Egypt, including refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. These bases are what drive people to forced displacement, movement, and migration that involve increased risks to their lives, rights, and freedoms. Drawing on the paradoxical effects of border exit theories, from the militarization of borders by neighboring countries to the evasion of responsibility towards forcibly displaced people fleeing hegemony-based, destabilizing wars, aggression, and violence, civilians suffer the loss of stability, livelihood, and mortality in search of a safe haven. In exchange for capital, political and security support, Europe turns a blind eye to a long record of serious human rights violations within Egypt, while the Egyptian regime accepts the role of border guard.
Furthermore, this institutional collusion turns aid into a reward for continuing the already observed and established repression, rather than as a tool to promote reform or respect for the law. Egypt has witnessed the largest range of human rights violations in the last decade alone, including the arbitrary detention of tens of thousands of political dissidents; the criminalization of gathering, demonstration, and protest; the closure of specific public spaces tied to freedom of expression; and restrictions on the right to organize. Referrals to special courts are expanding; and the public prosecutor’s office and state security agencies are being used to persecute activists and politicians while fair trial guarantees are being violated on a large scale.
Additionally, civilians are forcibly disappeared for weeks, months, or years, and the list does not exclude public, well-known figures. While torture is widespread and systematic within security institutions, prisoners suffer dehumanizing treatment in detention sites that lack the minimum standards required for basic human needs.
It should be noted that this summit is taking place less than a month after senate elections concluded, where these elections occurred in a locked-down political and security climate with no reliable statistics available on voter turnout. Moreover, these elections resulted in a senate completely dominated by the interior ministry, as has been the case in all elections since Sisi took power. The same scenario is expected to repeat itself during the House of Representatives elections in November; as those elections are considered more important at this stage as they will constitute Sisi’s last term in office, whether his last term will follow the current constitution, and whether his last term will be used as a gateway to another new constitutional amendment that would allow Sisi to remain in power. On the economic and social front, authoritarian policies and mismanagement of the economy have exacerbated poverty and marginalization.
As for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, Egyptian policies—funded by Europe—have turned into a deadly system of mass deterrence. Instead of providing protection, borders are closed to those fleeing war, forcing them to take deadly desert routes. News investigations and human rights reports have documented that those fleeing war and humanitarian disaster in Sudan via irregular routes to Egypt are detained by European-funded Egyptian border guards in unofficial detention centers, denied communication or access to lawyers, imprisoned in inhumane conditions, and often forced to sign ‘voluntary return’ documents in a massive pushback to a war zone. Human rights organizations have documented the forced return of more than 20,000 forcibly displaced Sudanese citizens, including children, women, and chronically ill people thereby separating hundreds of families.
While the suffering continues due to lengthy registration procedures, status determination, and the issuance of residence permits, the risks of arrest, detention, and forced deportation are escalating in Egypt’s governorates. All while forcibly displaced people are denied access to basic services, including health, education, communication services, and applications for support from civil society organizations. With the escalation of physical and sexual assaults in tandem with hate speech in recent years, forcibly displaced women are denied access to the justice system due to a documentation gap. In line with increasingly repressive security policies, the Asylum Law issued in December 2024 weakened the autonomy of the protection system and replaced it with security committees under government supervision that were designed under the jurisdiction of the European Asylum Agency.
The provisions of the law render the protection granted to refugees after their applications are approved meaningless. The provisions themselves encompass vague terminology that restricts and/or denies the right to asylum, and they tend to criminalize asylum in cases where asylum seekers arrive on Egyptian territory in an irregular manner, a manner which Egypt has witnessed increase in the last two years due to the wars raging on its eastern and southern borders. The provisions even criminalize citizens who help forcibly displaced people and/or perform humanitarian acts such as sheltering forcibly displaced people if citizens do not inform the authorities of their activities. These provisions have no legal or constitutional basis for any of the aforementioned forms of criminalization.
The restrictions demonstrated in the text of the law prompted seven rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council to send a joint letter to the Egyptian government expressing deep reservations and detailed comments on the law, as well as comments by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the asylum law, published last July, expressing ‘concern about provisions in the law that impose penalties for certain acts, which appear to be inconsistent with international refugee law’.
Forcibly displaced citizens of various neighboring African countries, whether as civilians or laborers, also face severe restrictions on employment as well as systematic patterns of discrimination and violence, including physical assaults and arbitrary detention on discriminatory grounds, without effective accountability or legal protection as a result of policies that prioritize criminalizing and policing judicial processes and access to rights.
The European Union’s continued unconditional support for the Egyptian government makes Europe a direct perpetrator in this dystopian reality and undermines Europe’s stated commitment to protecting human rights in its foreign policy. Turning Egypt into a ‘collective detention zone’ for asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees through unaccountable “security” funding violates the principle of non-refoulement and international obligations towards those seeking protection. Accepting the role of gatekeeper at the expense of the rights of forcibly displaced people is incompatible with Egypt’s ratified international obligations, national constitution, and the republic’s historical status as a country of asylum or transit.
The Refugee Platform in Egypt affirms that any transparent and authentic partnership is not built on the provision of hegemonic defence and Western supremacy, but on respect for human dignity and the protection of fundamental rights.
Parties to the partnership must execute the following:
- Linking all forms of cooperation to a strict mechanism for monitoring human rights and respect for the rule of law, which should be transparent and accessible to the public with the participation of independent Egyptian and international civil society organizations, not just official regime channels.
- Freezing all funding and cooperation related to ‘migration governance and border control’ until there exists transparent and independent monitoring, documentation, and verification mechanisms implemented by both parties to ensure compliance with local laws and international legal obligations, as well as making tangible improvements in safeguarding human rights and stabilizing the lives of forcibly displaced people.
- The European Union providing protection to those fleeing all forms of violence and withdrawing Egypt’s designation as a “safe country” for returns until the state provides material, rights-based protection methods and effective remedies to all forcibly displaced people, returnees, and arrivals under an independent monitoring and review mechanism.
- Guaranteeing the intellectual and expressive agency and autonomy of civil society entities, the media, and the press; ceasing the targeting of human rights organizations, human rights defenders, and journalists; and stopping the blocking of websites publishing human rights related content.
- Halting the criminalization of forcibly displaced people residing in Egypt and including immediately terminating all forms of forced deportation of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers to areas where they are at risk of danger.
- Facilitating the registration and asylum application process including making it available to all forcibly displaced people residing in Egypt without prejudice, and ensuring immediate access to essential services and basic rights.
- Re-evaluating Egyptian laws related to migration and asylum, including the recent asylum law that violates international obligations that were ratified by the republic, including but not limited to Law No. 82 of 2016 on combating illegal migration and its amendments as well as Decree No. 444 on border areas, using the contributions of stakeholders, relevant communities, experts, and civil society organizations.
- Prioritizing support for refugee-led organizations, including protection conditions, legal assistance, and humanitarian services rather than Western-backed, direct government funding or programs that create violations.
- Expanding evacuation, resettlement, and humanitarian visa pathways to ensure secure and formal options for those at risk of detention, deportation, oppression, or violence.
Stability is not achieved through repression administered through Western-sponsored, external funding, but through the rule of law, justice, and freedom.
