Red Sea: Egypt seeks agreements to curb Ethiopia’s actions
Cairo is already at loggerheads with Addis Ababa over the Nile. It is now exploring new alliances to curb ambitions regarding ‘its’ coastline
from our correspondent Alberto Magnani
NAIROBI – Relations between Egypt and Ethiopia have become strained due to the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile: a project as vital to Addis Ababa as it is contested by Cairo for the ‘theft’ of the waters of the sacred river, the source of almost 100 per cent of Egypt’s water resources.
This is not the only point of friction between the two, in the increasingly turbulent region spanning North Africa and the Horn of Africa. Egypt is strengthening its ties with Somalia and, above all, Eritrea, in order to counter Ethiopian strategies in another area of great sensitivity for Cairo: the Red Sea. Abiy has for years been asserting the ‘right’ to access to the coast, a right ‘denied’ since Eritrea’s independence in 1993 and the subject of claims that are straining relations with regional neighbours.
Egypt is opposed to the idea and, just over a month ago, signed a maritime agreement with Asmara that strengthens bilateral relations and sends a message to ‘Addis’ that is anything but veiled: coastal security is the ‘exclusive responsibility’ of coastal states, a doctrine that defuses – or attempts to defuse – Abiy’s expansionist ambitions.
Chaos in the Horn of Africa and Egyptian activism
Egypt’s drive is not a sudden development and is, today, a response to mounting concerns regarding a crucial geographical and economic landscape. Egypt is already in the thick of an attempt to revive an economy exposed to international turbulence, hampered by its energy dependence and threatened by the prospect of a renewed paralysis of shipping traffic in the Red Sea, a nightmare that would repeat the shock already inflicted by the Houthi incursions between 2023 and 2025.
The tangled web of tensions in the Horn of Africa – from the Red Sea to Israel’s diplomatic forays into Somaliland – is “pushing Egypt towards a much more active policy in the region”, explains Riccardo Fabiani of the International Crisis Group. The result is a search for alliances, such as that with Eritrea, with a view to both the immediate future and the long term. In the immediate term, says Fabiani, there is a need to contain the expansionist drive of Abiy, fresh from his re-election following the one-sided vote of the elections on 1 June. Looking ahead, the Egyptian government must influence the ‘future architecture’ of relations in a region that is becoming increasingly crucial and increasingly complex.
