Egypt Participates in EU, Southern Med. Countries Ministerial Meeting

Egypt's Assistant Foreign Minister for European Affairs Ambassador Badr Abdel Aty participated yesterday in the virtual meeting held with the Southern Mediterranean countries and the European Union (EU).

Organized by the Spanish Foreign Ministry, the meeting witnessed the participation of a number of foreign ministries, and European officials including the Spanish Foreign Minister, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement.

During his speech, Abdel Aty reviewed the challenges the whole region faces including Africa in light of the COVID-19 crisis and its conomic, social, and humanitarian impacts.

In addition, he discussed various issues such as terrorism, climate change, immigration, hatred discourse, and discrimination.

He stressed the duty of respecting the holy religions and respecting the different religious icons.

Furthermore, he stressed the importance of reshaping the mutual ties among the Mediterranean countries to be more effective and cooperative.

His speech also pointed out to the need of strengthening the economic cooperation between the European countries and Southern Mediterranean countries as they represent the EU bridge to Africa.

He also called for deepening the cooperation in various fields such as agriculture, transforming the European industrial technologies, artificial intelligence, smart exportation, drug industry, and supporting low-emissions economics.