By Tovima.gr –
A meeting in Brussels between MEP Nikolas Farantouris and Egypt’s Ambassador to the European Union took place simultaneously with the Egypt-Greece-Cyprus trilateral meeting.
At the center of the discussions was the preservation of the Sinai Monastery’s ownership status and its rights.
Nikolas Farantouris, a PASOK Member of the European Parliament and member of the European Parliament’s Committees on Budgets, Foreign Affairs, and Relations with the United States, received on Sept. 8 Egypt’s Ambassador to the European Union, Ahmed Abu Zeid, today in Brussels. Developments concerning the Sinai Monastery and EU-Egyptian relations were at the center of their discussion.
The meeting took place simultaneously with the Egypt-Greece-Cyprus trilateral meeting in El Alamein, attended by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
The meeting followed Farantouris’s previous contacts with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Strasbourg in January 2025.
Farantouris stressed that Egypt is an important partner for Europe and a key country for safeguarding regional stability and energy security, managing migration, ensuring freedom of navigation in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as for Egypt’s role in protecting world cultural heritage.
The central issue discussed at the meeting was the situation that has arisen concerning the status of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Sinai, the oldest continuously operating Christian monastery in the world, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a place of worship of particular significance to the entire Christian world.
MEP Nikolas Farantouris emphasized, on the one hand, the importance of safeguarding the Monastery’s historic and religious character and, on the other, its ownership status and the rights deriving from its centuries-old religious and institutional presence.
He also stressed that the issue should be addressed in a manner that strengthens rather than weakens the longstanding friendship and strategic relationship between Egypt and the European Union, as well as between Egypt and Greece.
A forthcoming visit by the Greek MEP to Egypt and Sinai was also discussed, as part of a constructive dialogue.
Farantouris later added in a post on X that the meeting had taken place at Ambassador Abu Zeid’s request. He also recorded the Egyptian ambassador’s response who referred to efforts of his Government to reach an amicable solution.
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