Brotherhood seeks to develop Egypt-EU partnership

On Wednesday evening the Economic Committee of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, received Bernardino Leon, the European Union envoy to the southern Mediterranean, along with an accompanying delegation, at the party's headquarters in Cairo.
During the meeting, ways of cooperation between the EU and Egypt with a view to drafting partnership agreements between the two sides were discussed. Leon expressed hopes that the EU will remain Egypt’s first commercial partner, reported Ikhwan Web, the Brotherhood's official English web site.

Mohamed Gouda, an FJP Economic Committee official, said the meeting had been fruitful, resulting in agreement on ways to promote Egyptian-European partnership – with the EU stressing readiness to provide all kinds of financial, trade and technical support including grants and loans to help the Egyptian economy through the current, difficult phase, following similar agreements with Tunisia and Jordan in October 2011 and February 2012, respectively. More meetings were arranged for further discussions.

The EU offered to aid in technology transfer and training and participate in agricultural, industrial and tourism projects as well as helping open up European markets to Egyptian products.