Will Germany freeze the arms deal with Egypt?
The mutual escalation between Egypt and Germany regarding the human rights situation in Egypt and the threat to freeze the military deal agreed upon by German Chancellor Angela Merkel before her departure to Egypt raised several questions about the future of the relationship between the two countries as a new government takes over the country.
CAIRO — In statements to the German News Agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), German Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office Katja Keul commented Dec. 16 on former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s approval of an arms export deal with Egypt one day before her departure.
“It is unimaginable for me that the new government was going to approve of this sale,” Keul said.
She said that the agreement of the new ruling coalition includes a clear paragraph on the issue of arms exports, and “what happened shows that we have to immediately implement this paragraph while paving the way for an arms export law.”
On Dec. 18, the German Foreign Ministry sharply criticized the human rights situation in Egypt. It issued a statement whereby the verdict to be pronounced on Dec. 20 against activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, his lawyer Mohamed el-Baqer and blogger Mohamed Ibrahim, serves for the federal government as an indicator of the direction in which the human rights situation in Egypt is evolving. It called on Egypt to have all of them released and said that lawyers should not be punished for practicing their professional activities.
