Austria's State Leaders Receive Authoritarian Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

PeoplePoliticians ♦ Published: December 19, 2018; 17:10 ♦ (Vindobona)

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi) also visited the Federal President, the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Parliament on the fringes of the EU-Africa Forum (High-Level Forum Africa-Europe), at which he received a EUR 350m commitment from the EIB to finance the expansion of the Cairo Metro. Every meeting emphasised that bilateral relations between Austria and Egypt were very good and that cooperation was to be extended. The former General, who is controversial because of his authoritarian style of government, had already made a clear rejection of the so-called "disembarkation platforms" in Egypt to the EU Council President Sebastian Kurz in Cairo during the summer.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi visiting Austria / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / Kremlin.ru [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)]

As reported by Vindobona.org, the main reason for el-Sisi's visit to Austria is the participation in the High-Level Forum Africa-Europe and the signing of a financing agreement with the EIB for a volume of EUR 350m for the extension of the Cairo…