Egyptian driving license to become equivalent to Italian driving license

CAIRO – 22 July 2018: The Interior Ministry agreed on the terms of a protocol on rendering the Egyptian driving license equivalent to that of Italy and it would be signed in the coming period, Minister of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriate Affairs Nabila Makram announced on Sunday.

Makram stressed that the date of signing the protocol of agreement will be determined through diplomatic methods followed by the Egyptian Embassy in Rome, Italy.

In the same context, she congratulated Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfik for the graduation of the new generation of Egyptian policemen, expressing her thanks to the efforts exerted by policemen to meet the requests of Egyptian expats.

In the last few days, Makram announced that the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport have initially agreed on the proposed protocol on the equivalence of Egyptian and Italian driving licenses.

She noted that Egyptian and Italian Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Ministries of Immigration and Interior Ministries have cooperated to revise all the protocol’s terms, stressing that she has given great attention to the protocol to meet the needs of Egyptian expats in Italy.

She pointed out that she has been in contact with Egyptian Ambassador to Italy Hesham Badr, who follows on the steps taken to conclude the agreement.

She stressed that the protocol is very important to legalize Egyptians’ status in Italy, and it will serve the interests of more than 200,000 Egyptians in Italy.

Previously, the minister of immigration and Egyptian expatriate affairs met with Italian Ambassador to Egypt Giampaolo Cantini, and she requested holding a meeting between specialized Italian authorities and officials at the Egyptian Interior Ministry to discuss the ways of rendering Egyptian driving licenses and Italian driving licenses, which require complex procedures to be issued, equivalent.

The Egyptian-Italian relationship has improved significantly in 2018, following the signing and concluding of several new deals and projects between Cairo and Rome, to end the political crisis which occurred after the murder of the Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in 2016.

In 2018, the Italian effort toward Egypt amounts to €35 million, of which €20 million are soft loans and €15 million are grants. For the Agenzia Italiana per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo (AICS), it is one of the major contributions on a global scale.

These initiatives are aimed at maintaining Italian support for the Egyptian private and agricultural sectors, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) included, already provided in the last few years.

At the same time, new areas will be involved, such as agroindustry and demography, and new recipients will benefit, namely disabled people and the young generation in the framework of anti-illegal immigration.

In the field of investments, the meeting between Ambassador Cantini and Minister Nasr was dedicated to the new Investment Law - specifically the final regulations to put it into force - and the contribution that Italian companies can give. In this framework, the Italian side raised specific initiatives in which some Italian companies are involved.

On Jan. 20, 2018, Minister of Military Production Mohamed el-Assar met with Italian Ambassador Cantini to discuss industrial cooperation between Cairo and Rome.

The meeting focused on the cooperation between military production companies in Egypt and Italian firms. They particularly discussed cooperation in agricultural mechanization technology and software industry along with the defense industry.
Tourism sector

Last December, the Vatican’s delegation of the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi (ORP), which is responsible for pilgrimages to the Vatican, visited the Pyramids and Sphinx sites. The delegation was chaired by the head of ORP, Remo Chiavarini. They also paid a visit to the Egyptian Museum.

The Vatican’s delegation met with Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, and Egypt’s Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb.

Egypt’s top religious leaders, Tawadros and Tayeb, also stressed the good relations between the Catholic Church in the Vatican and the Egyptian Coptic Church.

Earlier, former Tourism Minister Yehia Rashid paid a three-day visit to Vatican City, during which he met with Roman Catholic Pope Francis, who blessed the Holy Family’s journey in Egypt as an official Christian pilgrimage.

After Pope Francis’s decision to bless the Holy Family’s journey in Egypt, they agreed to organize the first official Christian pilgrimage in May 2018.
Additional report by Nawal Sayed