Analysis of two documents for EU cooperation in Egypt: Country Strategy Paper and National Indicative Programme

ANALISI DI DUE DOCUMENTI DELL'UE PER LA COOPERAZIONE IN EGITTO: IL COUNTRY STRATEGY PAPER ED IL NATIONAL INDICATIVE PROGRAMME

Relatore: G.A. PENNISI

Summary

1. Introduction

2. The reasons for choosing these documents

3. Egypt country strategy paper 2007-2013

4. Egypt National Indicative Programme 2011-2013

5. Linguistic analysis

6. Structural analysis

7. Analysis of the relevancy of the language to the contest

and the aims

8. Interesting features

9. Conclusions

10. Bibliography

1



1 – Introduction

Egypt and the EU established diplomatic relations in 1966, and

since then the EU has continued to develop a close relationship with its

geographic neighbour. This was significantly strengthened in 2004 with

the entry into force of the EU-Egypt Association Agreement (AA),

followed by the establishment in 2007 of a joint EU Egypt Action Plan

(AP).

The latter sets a wide-ranging agenda for intensified relations

between the two sides in the context of the European Neighbourhood

Policy. Fulfillment of the commitments of the Action Plan contributes to

deepening and broadening of EU-Egypt relations through closer co-

operation in areas of mutual interest and through frequent political

dialogue.

To assist Egypt in advancing the implementation of the

Association Agreement and the Action Plan, the European Union offers a

number of instruments and incentives within the framework of the

European Neighbourhood Policy. The most significant bilateral support is

allocated in the form of the multi-annual National Indicative Programme.

In April 2008 Egypt requested to begin a process of enhancing

relations with the EU, through intensified political dialogue, reinforced

trade and economic relations, and stronger co-operation in a range of

sectors. The EU-Egypt Association Council in April 2009 politically

endorsed the process of enhancing relations and decided to set up an ad-

hoc group to guide it.

2



2 – The reason for choosing these documents

I had the opportunity to read and analyze these documents during

my stage with the NGO Ciss-Cooperazione Internazionale Sud Sud

which included drawing up a development project concerning Egypt.

The two documents analyzed in this work constitute the

normative basis for the granting of EU's funds to the projects of

international cooperation in Egypt.

The first document, Country Strategy Paper, is the strategic

framework for cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Egypt

for the period 2007-2013. This document sets out the EU’s policy and

cooperation goals, together with its intended strategic response, and

identifies appropriate priority objectives.

The European Union drafts a Country Strategy Paper for each

state it is interested in cooperating with, and inside this Paper there is the

National Indicative Programme, which presents a more detailed analysis

of the economic, social and political situation of the country and sets

objectives, priorities and goals.

The National Indicative Programme covers three years while the

Country Strategy Paper covers six. The Country Strategy Paper, drawn

up in 2006 and coming into force in 2007, contains the National

Indicative Programme for the years 2007-2010, while the second

document I analyzed is its updating and prosecution for the years 2011-

2013.

I considered it interesting to compare the two documents because

even though they deal with the same subject, they concern different

periods of time and were written in different years so they give the

opportunity to make a linguistic comparison of style and lexicon and also

of their contents since in the meanwhile there were changes in the social,

political and economic contexts of the country.

3



3 – Egypt Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013

The Country Strategy Paper drafted under the European

Neighborhood Partnership Instrument provides a strategic framework for

cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Egypt for the years

2007-2013. This document sets out the EU’s policy and cooperation

goals, together with its intended strategic response, and identifies

appropriate priority objectives. Against this background, the National

Indicative Programme presents the European Union's response in terms

of financial assistance and gives details of the specific operations planned

and of the expected results for the period 2007- 2010.

The legal basis for Egypt’s relations with the EU is the

Association Agreement which was signed in 2001 and entered into force

in 2004. Egypt has engaged with the EU to negotiate a European

Neighborhood Policy Action Plan. The joint Action Plan was adopted in

2006 for the following five years and provided a comprehensive policy

framework for developing relations between Egypt and the EU, based on

an agenda of mutual commitments on political, social and economic

issues, centered on common values shared by Egypt and the European

Union.

During the first years of implementation of the EU-Egypt Action

Plan, dialogues were held between the EU and Egypt through nine

technical subcommittees which were established after the Action Plan

came into force. These subcommittees oversaw implementation and

monitoring of the different chapters and thematic undertakings in the

Action Plan and allowed the two sides to set specific annual priorities.

Egypt drew up a reform agenda for the years ahead, which sets detailed

priorities and objectives to address national challenges. The Action Plan

is consistent with Egypt’s reform agenda.

Three main priority objectives were set for this first Country

4



Strategy Paper under the European Neighborhood Policy:

− supporting Egypt's reforms in the areas of democracy,

human rights, good governance and justice;

− developing the competitiveness and productivity of the

economy;

− ensuring the sustainability of the development process

with effective social, economic and environmental policies and better

management of natural resources.

5



4 – Egypt National Indicative Programme 2011-2013

As stipulated by the European Neighbourhood Partnership

Instrument Regulation, in 2009 the Country Strategy Paper underwent a

mid-term review to ascertain the continued validity of the strategy. It

focused on whether the Country Strategy Paper still reflected the realities

of EU-Egypt relations, as well as how well it could respond to

developments that had taken place in Egypt, the EU and the rest of the

world since 2007.

The review found that the overall policy framework guiding EU-

Egypt relations had not changed significantly since the current Country

Strategy Paper was drawn up; it acknowledged that overall progress on

implementation of reforms in Egypt could so far be summarized as

limited but encouraging. Importantly, Egypt displayed a strong desire to

advance co-operation beyond current levels of ambition, as evidenced by

its 2008 request to begin a process of enhancing relations with the EU.

The mid-term review also analyzed the impact of major events on

the relevance of the current Country Strategy Paper and the implications

for it of new EU priorities that had emerged since 2007 and concluded

that, in the case of Egypt, the political, economic and social

consequences of these developments did not invalidate the Country

Strategy Paper.

Overall, it was determined that the strategy’s priorities and key

areas of emphasis continued to offer an appropriate response to the

challenges facing EU-Egypt relations. It was thus decided that the current

Country Strategy Paper should be maintained, and should be the basis for

the preparation of the National Indicative Programme 2011-2013.

6



5 – Linguistic Analysis

Both documents were written by an ad-hoc group of the European

Commission, so most of them aren't English native speakers.

The fact that the documents were written in English as the main

language is relevant: as Gotti (2005) states, in the last century English

has become undoubtedly the most common language of international

communication in most international context. In particular, English is

commonly used by European Union member states to communicate with

EU citizens and one another. In fact English has replaced French as the

language for international relations.

As Sager and al. (1980, p. 230) put it, “the lexicon of special

languages is their most obvious distinguishing characteristic”; the

language used in the documents being analyzed is that typical of

international cooperation, which is shared by the European Commission

that has drawn them up – and is the one which grants funds – and the

NGOs that are going to use them as guidelines in drawing up the projects

that are to be funded with European funds. The use of words such as

“Overall Objective” and “Specific Objective”, is in fact typical of

cooperation projects. Overall objective and Specific Objective are in fact

key parts of the Logical Framework, a matrix used for preparing and

revising the cooperation projects. These terms can be also used in other

fields, but in the context of international cooperation the have an

unambiguous meaning.

As stated by Gotti (2003), in specialized discourse the fact that in

a given context only one meaning is allowed is referred to as

monoreferentiality; the perfect biunique word-meaning link guarantees

conciseness, semantic uniqueness and highly specific occurrences of

lexical items, thus reducing ambiguity to the minimum.

Besides being monoreferential, words, which are information

7



carriers, have only a denotative function and lack any kind of emotional

and connotative meaning. They immediately point to one concept – so

called “referential precision” – and are transparent: the surface form,

immediately identifies a concept, which frees specialized language from

ambiguity.

Conciseness, which is another characteristic of specialized

discourse, is assured by linguistic devices such as juxtaposition,

specialization of words drawn from general language, use of acronyms

and abbreviations. These are largely used in the texts being analyzed and

particularly in the second document: the frequent use of abbreviations

(such as EU, CSP, ENPI, EC – European council), if on the one hand

makes the discourse more concise, on the other hand makes it

understandable only for those who are in the know.

Conciseness, on the other hand,only characterizes the lexical level

of specialized language: syntactic structures aren't compact at all, as it

can be seen in the examples, taken from each document:“The key strategic importance of Egypt lies in its plans for political,

social and economic reform, in its potential for deeper economic

relations with the EU and in its willingness to cooperate with the EU

on promoting peace and security in the region.”

“Trade-related assistance plays an important role in advancing

common economic integration objectives between Egypt and the EU,

while at the same time helping Egypt meet key social targets such as

higher job creation, lower unemployment and poverty reduction.”

Another fundamental element of the specialized discourse is

objectivity, which however sometimes seems to be lacking in the two

documents being analyzed. Even if at a surface level it is present in the

texts, they give the reader a picture of the Egyptian political situation and

of the progress of cooperation in that area which is more optimistic than

the real situation would allow.

As it happens with specialized languages, and especially with

8



legal contexts, the words used are general. Any legal text, in fact, must be

general to allow the largest number of cases to be included among what

is meant by the law. On the other hand, though, since it is a text which

aims to identify projects suitable to be funded by the European Union,

there's a risk that if norms and objectives are exceedingly generic funds

could be granted also to projects that are less focused on the goal that

EU wanted to reach with cooperation in Egypt. The following example is

taken by the first document:“Cooperation would take the form of a package of measures such as

capacity-building and development of human resources, technological

capabilities and organizational capacity in the framework of a

comprehensive approach aiming at promoting reforms.”

A distinction can be made between 'normative' paragraphs (those

in which the goals to be reached in the project are stated), that are very

dense and concise, with the lexical features examined before, and more

descriptive paragraphs, with historical digressions which give the reader

a clearer and more complete idea of the Egyptian historical, political and

economic background. In the former type the present and future tenses

prevail and there is a large use of the passive forms:“This programme is intended to implement further measures to reduce

regulatory and administrative constraints on trade and help to

strengthen Egypt’s competitive export capacity. It is fully in line with

the Government’s policy of raising living standards by promoting

faster economic growth”

while in the latter the past simple and present perfect are mostly

used and the style is more narrative and consequently comprehensible by

everyone:“Over the last 20 years Egypt has made substantial progress on

rebuilding internal and external security and pressing ahead with

economic reform, slowly at first but ambitiously during the 1990s and

with renewed vigour since July 2004.”

9



The pragmatic function of verb tenses and mode makes their

choice in specialized discourse essential.

The considerable use of passives assures a high degree of

depersonalization of the discourse, which allows the foregrounding of

facts, events, results in spite of the authors.

Anaphor, one of the most common devices to establish textual

cohesion, is here replaced by lexical repetition, a preference that derives

from the need to avoid any ambiguity.

Some of the main characteristics of written legal English, such as

sentence length and the complexity of its sentence structures, can be

found in the analyzed texts; while some others, such as repetitiveness, the

high concentration of Latinisms and archaic or rarely used lexical items

etc. cannot. Such features have been widely held for centuries as having

an exclusionary function, entrenching the privileges of the legal

profession. In recent decades there has grown the Plain Language

Movement in all major English-speaking countries and, however, calls

for radical changes in legal English have become increasingly

widespread.

I consider that these texts, and generally speaking documents

written by the European Union, follow this stream with the purpose of

enlarging the number of people who can read and understand the text as

much as possible, rather than limiting it to an elite.

Summarizing, the language used in the texts is clear, exact,

unambiguous, emotionally neutral, impersonal, very dense of

information, abstract, objective and general. This textual genre follows a

clearly codified, widely accepted pattern depending on the standard

methodological framework of international cooperation normative

system and on the purposes of the text.

10



6 – Structural Analysis

The text is structured in chapters, paragraphs, sub-paragraph,

points: in theory this makes it easier to consult it, but actually when one

has a clear idea of what he's looking for the structure of the text doesn't

make the search any simpler: the paragraphs are not always connected in

a logical way; their titles don't always allow the reader to realize what the

chapter or paragraph are about.

Comparing the structures of the two documents it appears that the

paragraphs are not structured in the same way.

The Country Strategy Paper opens with a brief summary about

the history of cooperation between Egypt and the European Union; in the

first chapter the EU cooperation objectives are examined in detail, the

second chapter deals with “Egypt's policy agenda”; in the third chapter

the “analysis of the political, economic and social situation” is divided

into three different paragraphs, plus one dealing with “Infrastructure,

transport, energy, the environment and natural resources”. The fourth

chapter gives an overview of past and ongoing European Council

cooperation, divided into three paragraphs: “EU assistance to Egypt in

2000-2006”, “Key lessons learned from the 2002-2006 Egypt Country

Strategy” and “Donor coordination”. The fifth chapter deals with the

European Council response strategy, and it is also divided into three

paragraphs: “General principles of the EU strategic approach and priority

objectives”, “Priority analysis” and “Complementarity and consistency

with the Regional Strategy Paper, the ENPI and other instruments”.

Finally the sixth chapter contains the “National Indicative Programme for

2007-2010”.

It must be noticed, first of all, that the EU cooperation objectives

are placed at the beginning of the document, reasonably close to Egypt's

policy agenda. On the contrary it's not quite clear why the analysis of the

11



political, economic and social situation is placed after Egypt's policy

agenda: it would have been more reasonable from a logical point of view

to introduce the country's policy agenda (referring to the years 2002-

2007) before the analysis of the political, social and economic situation

after the implementation of the above mensioned policies.

The National Indicative Programme 2011-2013, the second text

being analyzed, opens with an introduction about the Eu-Egypt relations

in recent history, political, economic, employment and social

developments; each of these subjects has a dedicated paragraph in which

its contents are described in an organic and precise way.

The second and last chapter – which is at the same time the heart

of the whole document – introduces straight away the National Indicative

Programme for 2011-2013, which is composed of various paragraphs

dealing with the different themes:

• “Main priorities and goals”, which is divided into two sub-

paragraphs and contains a short introduction about the European Union

Country Strategy Paper for Egypt – in which the three priority areas of

support to Egypt during the period 2007-2013 are listed – and a mid-term

review of the CSP;

• “Indicative budget for 2011-2013”;

• the three priority areas, which are the same provided in the

first document in the fifth chapter, in the paragraph titled “General

principles of the EU strategic approach and priority objectives” and, of

course, among the priorities of the NIP 2007-2010.

Each paragraph is dedicated to a priority area and is divided into sub-

paragraphs: the first one is “strategic context and justification”, followed

by the sub-priorities (priority 1 and 2 have three sub-priorities, while

priority 3 has four). For each sub-priority specific objectives, expected

results, indicators of achievement and indicative budget are listed

12



schematically, producing as a consequence a structure which is complex

from the point of view of the articolazione but light and simple to read.

• “Implementation”;

• “Risks and assumptions”;

• “Alignment, harmonisation and consultation”;

• “Budget and phasing of programme”: this paragraph

doesn't have a properly written text but is essentially a table which shows

the budget granted to each sub-priority. It is remarkable that although the

title refers to phases for the implementation of the projects, they are not

present in the text.

Since the National Indicative Programme is only a section –

although the most important one – of the Country Strategy Paper 2007-

2013, it is here included in a chapter at the end of the text, while in the

second document, being the NIP the document itself, it fills almost all the

text.

Another consequence of this structural difference is that in the

National Indicative Programme 2011-2013, there aren't any 'descriptive'

paragraphs (which have been discussed in the previous chapter of this

work), and part of the information that should be in them is divided

among other paragraphs but generally there is almost no information

about the situation in Egypt before the start of economic cooperation with

the EU.

As far as the way the National Indicative Programme is organized

in the two texts is concerned, it's more or less the same. In fact the

priorities are listed also in the Country Strategy Paper and each of them is

complete with its sub-priorities and their justification and objectives,

programme description, expected results, performance indicators and

indicative budget. The National Indicative Programme in the Country

Strategy Paper ends with a paragraph entitled “Budget and Phasing of the

13



Programme”, too, but in this case the budget is actually subdivided for

the years in which the project is structured, unlike the NIP 2011-2013.

At the end of each of the two documents there are some annexes;

both documents contain:

• a map of Egypt, which is more or less the same,

• some economic indicators, although they're different in

quantity, variety and sources, which are the Egyptian Authorities, IMF

and World Development Indicators database in the Country Strategy

Paper and Central Bank of Egypt, CAPMAS, Ministry of Finance of

Egypt, International Monetary Fund, EUROSTAT, EIU, Commission in

the National Indicative Programme, and

• Egypt environmental profile, which is exactly the same,

copied and pasted.

In addition, the Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013 has an annex

listing the EU member states and their EC programmes subdivided by

sectors, while the National Indicative Programme 2011-2013 has a list of

abbreviations, the key indicators of millennium Development Goals and

a Donor Coordination Matrix. The fact that the latter is missing in the

CSP can be explained by the presence in it of a paragraph about it in

chapter 4 “Overview of the past and ongoing EC Cooperation”.

14



7 – Analysis of the relevancy of the language to the contest

and the aims

The language used in the two documents is relevant to the contest,

since it is the language of cooperation (as it has been said in chapter 5 of

this work).

The words used in the texts are general; any normative text, in

fact, must be general to allow the largest number of cases to be included

among what is meant by the law. On the other hand, since it is a text

which aims to identify projects suitable to be funded by the European

Union, there's a risk that if norms and objectives are exceedingly generic

funds could be granted also to projects that are less focused on the goal

that EU wanted to reach with cooperation in Egypt.

15



8 – Interesting Features

The two documents were written by the European Union. Since

the projects dealt with in the documents are going to be implemented in

Egypt and are going to affect the Egyptian political, economic and social

situation, Egypt should be concerned formally as well as it is in facts.

On the contrary from a forrmal – and linguistic – point of view

Egypt is the object of cooperation, to whom they address an activity that

origins abroad and has as its final aim the realization of an European

interest rather than an Egyptian one. However, it couldn't have been any

different: the motivations that make EU (and generally speaking all donor

countries) develop cooperation projects with other countries are that it is

impossible for any country to fully move ahead in a context where the

neighbour regions are backward, not only as far as economy is

concerned, but also about circulation and achieving of the civil rights and

democratic values.

Moreover, even if at a surface level the texts being analyzed are

objective, they give the reader a picture of the Egyptian political situation

and human rights development progress which is more optimistic than

the real situation would allow.

The fact that the document were drawn up by the European

Union, in addition to this, results in the language used being more

suitable for a European context than to Egypt, if not from a lexical point

of view, at least as far as the contents are concerned.

In order to further clarify these points, it could be interesting to

analyze some passages from the National Indicative Programme:“During 2011-2013, it is proposed that the EU continues to target the

same three subpriorities as during 2007-2010:

1. Support for political development, decentralisation and

promotion of good governance

16



2. Promotion and protection of human rights

3. Support for modernisation of administration of justice

Continued EU support in these sub-priority areas is critically

important to consolidate achievements made so far and to encourage

further bold steps towards political reform. (…) besides being

important in its own right this priority area of co-operation can have a

strong positive multiplier effect on the economic and social sectors in

Egypt.”

In this passage Egypt is only mentioned at the end, and it can be

noticed that, both from a linguistic point of view and in facts, it is not the

subject but the object of cooperation, almost a mere geographical

location where the planned actions can be implemented.

Moreover it has to be considered that, when both documents were

written the Egyptian political system was a democracy only nominally.

Of course the EU aims to improve the level of democracy in northern

Africa (in this case in Egypt), but probably Mubarak's government didn't

particularly like the fact that the EU wanted to “promote and protect

human rights” in a country where at that time torture and arbitrary

imprisonment were commonly practiced. The paragraph from which the

previous text is taken opens with this statement:“Ongoing political reform is a central element of the relationship

between Egypt and the EU. This is a challenging area of support that

will require significant effort from both sides to exploit the

opportunities for co-operation offered by the AP. The EU’s approach

to supporting this sector is based on the recognition that it is Egypt’s

own wish to pursue an internal political reform agenda, and that the

scale of support will depend on the extent to which reforms are carried

through.”

If it can be said that “it is Egypt’s own wish to pursue an internal

political reform agenda”, this is only true because Egypt is quite

interested in receiving European funds and this is possible only accepting

its terms. In practice, besides, the projects implemented in Egypt focus

17



mainly on other aspects (particularly the development of economy, of

non-state agents' role and infrastructures, and the improvement of health

conditions), while only a few aim to improve the judiciary system and the

promotion of human rights and participative democracy.

In reaction to Mubarak's government and the power of the army,

following the uprising in Tunisia, on January 25th, 2011 from Tahrir

square (in Arabic “freedom”) some protests began and made president

Mubarak resign. This revolution, and the others that took place in the

Arab world at that time have been called “the Arab Spring” (also “Arab

Awakening”).

Following these revolutions, the situation will probably change

significantly. They originated from young people's need of a real

democracy, so if Egypt's next government actually reflects the requests of

Tahrir square it will be the government itself to ask for greater attention

for democratic development in the next Country Strategy Paper (and the

National Indicative Programme contained in it) and will bring forth

effectively policies oriented to such development.

From the point of view of its contents the next 'edition' will

probably be very different.

18



9 – Conclusions

The two documents analyzed in this work constitute the

normative basis for the granting of European Union's funds to the

projects of international cooperation in Egypt.

The first one, Egypt Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013, is the

strategic framework for cooperation between the European Union and

Egypt for the period 2007-2013. This document sets out the European

Union’s policy and cooperation goals, together with its intended strategic

response, and identifies appropriate priority objectives.

The second document, Egypt National Indicative Programme

2011-2013, presents a more detailed analysis of the economic, social and

political situation of the country and sets objectives, priorities and goals.

It covers three years while the Country Strategy Paper covers six, so it is

the updating and prosecution for the years 2011-2013 of the Country

Strategy Paper.

As far as the linguistic analysis is concerned, the two analyzed

documents have some features which are characteristic of the specialized

discourse: exactitude, clarity, objectivity, generalisation, density of

information, emotional neutrality, unambiguousness and impersonality.

Although conciseness is assured by linguistic devices such as

juxtaposition and use of acronyms and abbreviations, syntactic structures

are not compact at all, as they are very long and complex.

This textual genre follows a clearly codified, widely accepted

pattern depending on the standard methodological framework of

international cooperation normative system and on the purposes of the

text.

As far as the structural analysis is concerned, they have a similar

structure, although there are a few differences. Since the National

Indicative Programme is only a section of the Country Strategy Paper

19



2007-2013, it is here included in a chapter at the end of the text, while in

the second document, being the National Indicative Programme the

document itself, it fills almost all the text.

As a consequence of this structural difference, there are no

'descriptive' paragraphs (which are rich of digressions that give the reader

a more complete idea of the Egyptian background), and part of the

information that should be in them is divided among other paragraphs but

generally there is almost no information about the situation in Egypt

before the start of economic cooperation with the EU.

The language used in the two documents is relevant to the contest

and to the aims.

I found it interesting that in the programme big attention is given

to the promotion and protection of human rights and to the modernization

of the judiciary system, while at the moment when the documents were

written there was in Egypt a political system which was democratic only

nominally.

I think that, following the Arab Spring revolutions, the next

Country Strategy Paper and National Indicative Programme will be

different as a consequence of the political change occurring in these

months.

20



10 – Bibliography

• Chouliaraki L., Faircough N. Discourse in late Modernity.

Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh University Press,

1999

• Fairclough N. Discourse and Text: Linguistic and

Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis in Discourse Society

April 1992, vol. 3 no. 2, pp. 193-217

• Gotti M. Investigating Specialized Discourse. Peter Lang,

2008

• Gotti M. English in Intercultural settings: Globalising

trends and Local Resistance in Cortese G. & Duszac A. Identity,

Community, Discourse, Peter Lang, 2005

• Gotti, M. Specialized Discourse. Linguistic Features and

Changing Conventions, Peter Lang, 2003

• Gotti, M. I linguaggi specialistici: caratteristiche

linguistiche e criteri pragmatici. La Nuova Italia, 1991

• Perego, E. Specialized Discourse, TESL - Electronic

Journal, Volume 8, Number 1, June 2004

• Sager, J.C., Dungworth, D., & McDonald, P.F. English

Special Languages. Brandstetter, 1980

• Williams, C. Tradition and change in legal English.

Verbal construction in prescriptive texts. Peter Lang, 1952

• Williams, C. Legal English and Plain Language: an

introduction. in Williams C., Milizia D., ESP Across Cultures, volume 1.

B.A. Graphis, 2004

21

Analysis of two documents for EU cooperation in Egypt: Country Strategy Paper and National Indicative Programme

Documents