Luxembourg's Ministry of State has confirmed that Prime Minister and Minister of State, Xavier Bettel, will participate in the EU-Arab League Summit, which is taking place on 24 and 25 February 2019 in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
The summit will bring together for the first time the heads of state or government of both sides, co-chaired by the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The leaders of both sides will seek to strengthen Arab-European ties and address a wide range of common issues and challenges, including migration, security and multilateralism.
The summit in Sharm el-Sheikh will be the first meeting between the European Union and the League of Arab States at the level of heads of state or government. The decision to organise the summit was taken following the informal meeting of EU heads of state or government in Salzburg on 19-20 September 2018. In its conclusions on 18 October 2018, the European Council welcomed the holding of the summit. The summit will be an opportunity for the leaders to emphasise the need for greater strategic cooperation between the EU and the Arab world, promoting a relationship of the kind that the EU has developed with other regional groupings. Today the two regions comprise 12% of the world's population. With the Middle East especially experiencing strong population growth (from 1950-2000 the population already grew from 92 million to 349 million, which is a 3.8 fold increase, or 2.7% per year) the cross-regional opportunities and challenges are likely to increase. The summit should hence be an opportunity to boost cooperation on a number of issues, such as socio-economic development, trade and investment, energy security, climate change and migration.
The two regions are already major trade and investment partners. Collectively the EU is the first trading partner for the LAS. This is also the case for 11 individual members of the LAS. The EU is also the biggest investor in the LAS countries. For example, 23% of all EU oil imports come from LAS countries. The equivalent number for natural gas is 19%. The summit will provide an opportunity for leaders to discuss how to further strengthen economic cooperation between the two sides. Leaders are expected to discuss possibilities to develop cooperation in the fields of energy, science, research, (digital) technology, tourism, fisheries and agriculture.
