By Coptic Solidarity –
Greek Member of the European Parliament Nikolas Farantouris has linked European Union funding for Egypt to respect for religious freedom, speaking immediately after a two-day visit to St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai and contacts with Egyptian authorities over the unresolved dispute concerning the Monastery’s legal and property status.
In a September 28 interview with Ionian Galaxy, only hours after returning from Cairo and shortly before departing for Brussels, Farantouris said:
“I spent two days at the Sinai Monastery, in order to support the monastic community and to speak with the Egyptian authorities. I also had contact at the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning the issue of the Monastery.”
Asked directly whether his contacts had produced positive results, Farantouris did not report an agreement or any specific undertaking by the Egyptian authorities. Instead, he pointed to the unresolved ownership dispute:
“The Monastery has been left to its fate. We are talking about one of the oldest monasteries in the world, with a history of 1,600 years, from the time of Justinian until today. There are controversial decisions by Egyptian courts concerning ownership of its property.”
He went on to emphasize:
“I consider it inconceivable that there has not been the necessary mobilization to support a historic monastery, an ark of Christianity, a World Heritage monument and a site of great geopolitical importance. As a Member of the European Parliament, together with colleagues of mine, I have raised the issue at the European level. The funding that Egypt receives from the European Union is accompanied by conditions, one of which is respect for religious freedom.”
A Visit at the Invitation of Both Sides
Farantouris travelled from Brussels to Cairo on September 24 and from there to St. Catherine’s for a two-day visit, at the invitation of both the Sinaitic monastic community and the Egyptian authorities. Before departing, his office said that the purpose of the visit was to obtain first-hand information about the negotiations and examine how the European Parliament could contribute to a solution.
The visit followed Farantouris’s September 8 meeting in Brussels with Egypt’s Ambassador to the European Union, Ahmed Abu Zeid, held at the request of the Egyptian side. The status of St. Catherine’s and EU-Egypt relations were central to that discussion, with Farantouris stressing the Monastery’s ownership status and the rights deriving from its centuries-long institutional presence.
The Sinai visit therefore gave Farantouris direct contact with the monastic community as well as with Egyptian officials, including at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. No public account has so far identified the Egyptian officials he met or disclosed the substance of those discussions.
Visit Comes as Negotiations Stall
The visit came amid continuing negotiations between the Monastery and the Egyptian government over an agreement intended to address the dispute. On August 30, Τa Νea, citing sources in Sinai, Cairo and Athens, reported that the talks had entered a “critical final stage,” with the Brotherhood preparing its response to Egyptian proposals submitted earlier that month and expectations that the process could then move toward “final signatures.”
By September 23—the day before Farantouris left for Egypt—the same Νewspaper reported that negotiations had instead reached an “impasse, without any specific timetable for the immediate future.” It said that outstanding issues remained unresolved following an Egyptian counterproposal in August.
Independently, Orthodoxia Info reported the same day that the talks were proceeding “without a specific timetable for the immediate future,” likewise stating that no complete, unified agreement had been finalized.
Farantouris’s reference to EU conditionality follows an earlier initiative in August in which he and three other Greek MEPs submitted a written question to the European Commission concerning St. Catherine’s. The question addressed the Monastery’s legal personality, legal representation and property status, and asked whether developments surrounding the Monastery had been taken into account in assessing Egypt’s compliance with the conditions attached to EU financial assistance.
