With the escalation of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis and the failure of negotiations, Egyptians fear potential water risks, holding their president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi responsible, especially with Addis Ababa asserting that the agreement of principles that Sisi signed recognized its right to build the dam and fill the reservoir.

After the announcement of the death of the negotiating track over the Renaissance Dam; The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has resorted to the Security Council, and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Guido Andargashio said that the mobilization of the Renaissance Dam scheduled for next July represents a stage that was agreed upon between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in 2015.

The Renaissance Dam and its popular fears renew the question about Sisi's waiver of Egyptian capabilities, as happened in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas issue, which the Egyptian opposition and activists say Sisi has overstretched Egypt's rights there, and the concession of Israel and Cyprus to huge fields of natural gas, while the Egyptian government says that The demarcation of the northern maritime borders allowed Egypt to benefit from the energy fortunes there.

In the opinion of many Egyptians, the most obvious issue regarding Sisi’s abdication of the capabilities of the Egyptian people is the abdication of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in favor of Saudi Arabia following the agreement to demarcate the maritime borders between the two countries, which tomorrow, Wednesday, marks the third anniversary of Sisi’s ratification, thus transferring sovereignty over the two islands to Riyadh.

Tiran and beeps

On Saturday, June 24, 2017, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ratified the agreement to demarcate the maritime border between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which was concluded by Cairo on April 8, 2016, according to which transfer of sovereignty over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the Red Sea to Riyadh.

Al-Sisi's ratification came after the Egyptian parliament approved the agreement on June 14 of the same year, despite the widespread public rejection that was represented in anger on social media, as well as protests and demonstrations suppressed by security, which are known as the "Friday of the Earth" on April 25. April 2016.

Although Sisi and his media outlets affirmed that the agreement is compatible with the Egyptian law and constitution, and reiterated that it respects the institutions of the Egyptian state; It struck the wall of the ruling of the Administrative Court of nullity of the agreement, which is the court competent to settle disputes to which the state is a party.

The judgment of June 21, 2016 stipulated that Egyptian sovereignty over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir continued, and after the government appealed the ruling according to its legal right, the Supreme Administrative Court confirmed on January 16, 2017 that "Egypt's sovereignty over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir severed". .

However, Sisi turned to the Supreme Constitutional Court, which ruled on March 3, 2018, that the agreement is one of the acts of sovereignty that the executive branch has jurisdiction over and is subject to the supervision of the legislative authority, and the judiciary has no right to interfere in it.

And the two islands have great strategic importance for their role in the strategic defense insurance of the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian territorial waters in the Red Sea, and enabling them to Egypt to completely close the Gulf of Aqaba in the event of any war with Israel.

It is noteworthy that the journalist writer close to the Egyptian regime, Makram Mohamed Ahmed, confirmed in a television interview the link of the abdication of the two islands to the Saudi consent of the Egyptian regime, as Riyadh postponed sending oil shipments to Cairo three times within only eight months, and that the Saudis insisted on ending the Egyptian abdication of Sovereignty over the two islands, before King Salman's plane landed in Egypt.

He pointed out that it is Israel that will receive the security tasks that were assigned to Egypt regarding the two islands.

In February 2017, the opposition supplementary channel broadcast an audio recording attributed to the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, as he spoke by phone with the Israeli legal advisor, Yitzhak Molcho, on the islands of Tiran and Sanafir.

According to the leak, Shukry says that Egypt will not agree to any amendment to the agreement without the prior approval of the Government of Israel.

Shukri also says that the system in Egypt will continue all measures to implement the boundary demarcation agreement, regardless of the Egyptian judiciary’s decision in this regard.

East Mediterranean Gas

Al-Sisi's concessions, according to the Egyptian opposition, started immediately after he took power, as Egypt signed in November 2014 the framework agreement to demarcate the Egyptian maritime borders with both Cyprus and Greece, despite the Egyptian government's refusal to sign it since 2006.

The demarcation resulted in Egypt giving up an area equivalent to twice the size of the Nile Delta in Egypt, said Nayel El Shafei, a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one interested in gas issues.

Al-Shafei explained that the Israeli Leviathan and Cypriot fields of Aphrodite are located in the exclusive Egyptian economic waters, and that by signing Al-Sisi the agreement with Cyprus, he would have recognized the abdication of Egypt's rights in those billionaires.

The agreement also led to the contiguity of the sea borders of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, allowing the passage of an Israeli and Cypriot gas pipeline to Europe without Israel and Cyprus paying any fees to Egypt, which was considered by some to be the lifeline for Israel, which was suffering from a crisis in how to export gas, especially as it is in Conflict with its land and sea neighbors.

Nile water

Activists and opponents accuse Sisi of neglecting the waters of the Nile by signing the agreement to announce the principles with Sudan and Ethiopia, where Egypt recognized Ethiopia's right to build the Renaissance Dam on the waters of the Blue Nile, on the general condition that the dam does not harm the interests of the estuary countries of Egypt and Sudan, but the agreement did not specify the share of each A state of water, as it did not put any provisions for how to resolve the contentious and outstanding points between the two countries.

According to Egyptian economist Mahmoud Wahba, Sisi’s signing of this agreement nullified an agreement deposited with the United Nations in 1993 between Egypt and Ethiopia that prohibits the construction of dams.

In a post on his Facebook account, Wahba asked, "Why does Sisi give up an international agreement deposited with the United Nations body that preserves Egypt's waters and sovereignty, and instead signs the Khartoum agreement in 2015, and gives Ethiopia the right to build a dam without conditions or specifications and cancels an international agreement in 1993?" .

According to a study published in 2016 in the Journal of International Governmental Policy, under the title "The Egyptian negotiating position in the crisis of the Renaissance Dam ... challenges and options."

In this study, the researcher Emad Hamdi considered that one of the most important challenges facing the Egyptian negotiator in the Renaissance Dam crisis is that Egypt lost the influence it had exercised for a long time on traditional donor powers, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, to prevent the financing of the dam, after the declaration of principles signed by Sisi, And that contained implicit recognition for the dam, as Egypt and Sudan presented the true birth certificate for the Ethiopian dam, which was suffering from recognition and legitimacy problems.