Egypt has become one of Greece’s most important partners in the Eastern Mediterranean. Athens relies on cooperation with Cairo on maritime boundaries, energy, Libya, migration, and regional security. That dependence, however, makes disagreements with Egypt harder to manage. The continuing dispute over the status of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai shows why.
An Egyptian court ruling on May 28, 2025, raised concerns in Greece over the monastery’s property rights and legal status.
Greece wants to protect the monastery’s property and institutional rights without allowing the issue to damage a relationship that serves much wider strategic interests. The issue remained unresolved when Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at El-Alamein on September 8, 2026. Their meeting, followed by a trilateral summit with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, reaffirmed cooperation across many of the areas that make Egypt important to Athens.
Saint Catherine’s has become a test of how Greece manages that relationship. An Egyptian court ruling on May 28, 2025, raised concerns in Greece over the monastery’s property rights and legal status. Athens and Cairo have since tried to reach an agreement, and negotiations continued through the summer. Mitsotakis raised the issue again with Sisi at El-Alamein.
The same day, Egyptian Ambassador to the European Union Ahmed Abu Zeid met Greek member of the European Parliament Nikolas Farantouris in Brussels at the ambassador’s request. Farantouris pressed for the protection of the monastery’s status and institutional rights while stressing that the issue should be resolved without weakening the strategic relationship between Greece and Egypt.
Athens’ handling of the dispute reflects a broader constraint. Greece has an interest in securing the monastery’s rights, but confrontation with Cairo could affect cooperation on issues that carry greater strategic weight.
Maritime boundaries are one of them. Greece and Egypt partially delimited their exclusive economic zones in 2020. The agreement strengthened Greece’s position as Athens challenged the maritime claims created by Turkey’s 2019 agreement with Libya. At El-Alamein, Greece, Egypt, and Cyprus again backed maritime delimitation in accordance with international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Energy has made the relationship still more important. The planned GREGY interconnector would carry electricity generated in Egypt to Greece and European markets. Egypt could also process natural gas from Cyprus for export to Europe. These projects give Athens, Cairo, and Nicosia practical reasons to maintain their cooperation and could strengthen Egypt’s role in Europe’s energy network.
Libya adds another reason for Athens to keep Cairo close. Turkey retains a military and political presence there and continues to defend its 2019 maritime agreement with Tripoli. Egypt has its own security interests in Libya and considerable influence there. Greece, therefore, needs regular coordination with Cairo as it seeks to protect its maritime interests and develop its own dialogue with Libya.
Turkey’s improving relationship with Egypt adds to the calculation. Cairo and Ankara have restored diplomatic relations and expanded cooperation after years of rivalry. Egypt has not abandoned its partnership with Greece, and the El-Alamein summit showed that important areas of alignment remain. But Athens no longer can assume that tensions between Egypt and Turkey will automatically work in Greece’s favor.
Athens no longer can assume that tensions between Egypt and Turkey will automatically work in Greece’s favor.
Migration and relations with the European Union add another dimension to the partnership. Greece and Cyprus have supported closer European engagement with Egypt, while Cairo plays an important role in managing migration routes toward Europe. As a result, Athens deals with Egypt both as a bilateral partner and as part of its wider European policy.
For Washington, the ability of the dispute to disrupt relationships in the Eastern Mediterranean matters. Greece, Egypt, and Cyprus cooperate on energy, maritime security, and regional stability in an area connecting Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
The El-Alamein summit showed that neither Greece nor Egypt wants the monastery dispute to define their relationship. For Athens, however, Saint Catherine’s exposes the harder side of an indispensable partnership. Egypt’s importance gives Greece strong reasons to preserve the relationship, but it also limits how freely Athens can respond when their interests diverge. Managing that tension while defending Greek interests is the price of keeping Cairo close.
