Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 23 November 2022 - Strasbourg

Human rights situation in Egypt (debate)

  Bas Eickhout, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, we are indeed back from Sharm el—Sheikh, from the COP27, where I was last week as a delegation leader of the European Parliament’s delegation to COP27. I have to be very honest, if I then hear the Commission say that they are very happy with the room for civil society that was there, then sorry but you were not there. There is a shrinking space for civil society there in Sharm el—Sheikh. People were intimidated, harassed. There is even a complaint by the German Government; they don’t do that for nothing.

We, with this badge, were harassed at the entrance, where we were only making the claim that political prisoners should be freed. We were harassed for that. I expect the Commission to speak out on that, and not say that it’s all fine, and that indeed we see, as my colleague from Renew said, that some prisoners were freed, because at the same time we know that since then at least 1 953 Egyptians were imprisoned. That should be the focus of our story, that should be the focus of this discussion.

We have left Sharm el—Sheikh. We can go freely back to Europe, but the civil society of Egypt stays in Egypt, and are now under close scrutiny after COP27. That should be our concern and prime focus.

I’m sincerely disappointed by the speech by the European Commission. Because we do know what the political prisoners are ongoing, and that civil society is getting less and less room in Egypt.

We have a standing rapporteur, Mr Mounir Satouri, who will keep on following this situation, but that is the message we should give to the civil society in Egypt: that maybe COP27 moved on, but we will keep on keeping this issue very close. That’s also the message that this resolution is giving, and also the message to the UN, that for the next time, the next COPs, there should be room for freedom of expression and for civil society to make their voices heard in any UN conference that is being organised – and that I also expect to hear from the Commission.