EU votes to cut military aid to Egypt

13 March 2016

The death of the Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge PhD student, has raised concerns over the current government’s crackdown on dissent

The European Union (EU) has voted to cut military ties with Egypt due to concerns over the killing of an Italian student in Cairo earlier this year.

The non-binding resolution, which seeks to cut all military aid and assistance to Egypt, was passed by a majority of EU member states, with 558 voting in favour, 10 against and 59 abstentions.

The death of the Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge University PhD student, has raised concerns over the current government’s crackdown on dissent. It is belived that Regeni was targeted because of his research on trade unions in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

Despite this, there has been no evidence to suggest the student was killed by the authorities, although human rights activists say a post-mortem autopsy shows signs of “state-like torture”.

EU criticism of the Egyptian government so far has not impacted the military cooperation of many European countries.

France, for example, has been a major supplier of arms to Egypt and Germany was also one of the first EU states to develop relations with the Al-Sisi government, signing several economic partnerships and agreements. The trade exchange between the two countries reached its peak in 2014 at $4.9bn.

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