Common ground

President Mubarak was in Europe pursuing new economic opportunities

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Banking on a wide range of international relations, President Mubarak pursues world support for regional political stability and economic prosperity

Against a backdrop of increased national tension over economic challenges and the fast- growing impact of a marked rise internationally of food prices, President Hosni Mubarak this week visited France and Germany, two prominent trade partners, in search of more direct foreign investments. The two- leg European trip launched on Monday in Paris and concluded Wednesday in Berlin was designed mainly to address the business community with whom Mubarak is heavily engaged.

"The high gross rates that we managed to achieve during the past few years helped us confront the current international economic crisis [especially in relation to] an unprecedented rise in oil and food prices," Mubarak said in an address Tuesday to the Egyptian-French Business Council in Paris. According to the president, despite the hardship it sustained as a result of a tough world economic crisis, Egypt is determined "to stay the course of economic reforms firmly and confidently."

Mubarak urged members of the French business community to consider expanding trade exchange with and investments in Egypt.

The expansion of Egyptian economic and technology cooperation was a top item on the agenda of Mubarak's talks with French Prime Minister François Fillon Tuesday and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday in Berlin.

The volume of Egyptian-French trade reached two billion euros last year. French investments in Egypt top three billion euros. The volume of Egyptian-German trade reached 1.5 billion euros last year. German investments in Egypt is close to one billion euros .

Also with an eye on promoting wider economic cooperation between Egypt and members of the European Union, President Mubarak on Tuesday voiced support for the French proposal to establish a union for Mediterranean nations, the brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "I am confident that the French president will give momentum to the initiative," Mubarak said in Paris on Tuesday.

A summit for the countries of the union is scheduled to convene in Paris in July. In that summit Mubarak is set to press upon European leaders the need for a collective world effort to confront the growing food crisis. Mubarak will appeal for an end to an expanding Western industrial trend to turn food crops to generate biofuel as in the case of corn-based ethanol. Ethanol is perceived as the alternative fuel that could release the US from its aggressive oil consumption.

The impact of these new industrial trends was a key issue for Mubarak's talks in Paris and Berlin. It is subject to a growing world debate in view of the high toll of the world food crisis that is expected to last for a decade.

Mubarak's talks with Merkel and those he held at the Elysee on Monday evening with Sarkozy focussed heavily on regional political developments in the next few months. The fate of the Annapolis-launched process of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and the situation in Lebanon headed the list. In both European capitals, the president attempted to garner support for an Egyptian proposal to host a conference next month in Sharm El-Sheikh for Palestinian-Israeli peace. The proposed conference, Cairo hopes, would capitalise on the regional visit of US President George W Bush. Mubarak is offering to host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert along with Bush and Jordanian King Abdullah. The objective of the proposed meeting, according to Egyptian officials, is to secure a US announcement on the parameters of a possible final peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis. Olmert has expressed considerable reluctance -- it amounts to an outright refusal, some sources suggest -- to the idea.

On Lebanon, Mubarak examined with Sarkozy the containment of a prolonged Lebanese crisis that seems set to continue unresolved despite joint Arab-European mediation.

In both Paris and Berlin, Mubarak was set to renew Cairo's concern over any military operation in the region. The president, sources say, was leaving with a clear message to two main influential world capitals: the Middle East cannot sustain a new military hiccup, be it US strikes against Iran, an Israeli attack on southern Lebanon or a massive Israeli incursion in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the political and humanitarian crisis in Darfur was also a priority agenda issue for the president in the capitals of France and Germany. According to presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad, Mubarak argued the case to put equal pressure on the Khartoum regime and the Darfur rebels to facilitate a political deal on power and wealth sharing and security arrangements between the two sides.

On Wednesday, Mubarak was scheduled to arrive in Libya for talks with his Libyan countepart Muammar Qaddafi on the chances of mediating the conflict in Darfur. Libya and Egypt have been trying for years to convince the Khartoum regime and its rebels to reach a peace deal.