A red card from Ethiopia to Egypt

When Egypt defeated Ethiopia 2–0 last Friday in the World Cup qualifiers, Egyptians did not rejoice much. Instead, they were overcome with regret, realising they were suffering heavy losses in the water race at the hands of their Ethiopian rival.

Egyptian journalist Ali Al-Qamash expressed this on his personal Facebook page, writing: “We beat Ethiopia in football… and they beat us in water polo.”

On 9 September, Egypt is facing an exceptional event related to its water security, one that could pose an existential threat to its historical share of the Nile’s waters.

The official inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (whose construction began on 2 April 2011), after nearly 15 years of disputes and negotiations, marks a pivotal and historic turning point. It could be likened to a “red card” that ends a football game, as the Ethiopians have settled the geopolitical equation in their favour and placed Cairo and Khartoum before a fait accompli.

Abiy Ahmed’s messages

Standing in front of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (with a capacity of 74 billion cubic metres), Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared a few days ago in a video posted on his official account on the X platform, describing the dam’s completion as a “historic achievement).”

In an interview with Ethiopian television, Abiy Ahmed affirmed that the project is peaceful, has been completed on the ground without causing any harm, and will deliver wide-ranging economic benefits to his country. He called on other states—implicitly referring to Egypt and Sudan—to cooperate on the basis of mutual benefit, according to the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA).

In July, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sought to reassure the two downstream states, Egypt and Sudan, insisting that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam posed no threat but rather a shared opportunity. The energy and development it would generate, he said, would extend beyond Ethiopia. He further claimed that Egypt’s Aswan High Dam had not lost a single drop of water as a result of the project.

Alongside these messages of reassurance, Addis Ababa also sent sharper signals to Cairo and Khartoum. Ethiopia’s Minister of Water and Energy, Habtamu Itefa, declared that the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam was complete, pointedly asking: “What is there left to negotiate?”

In May, the Ethiopian government announced the creation of a new naval police force, equipped with drones, speedboats and interceptor craft, to secure and protect the dam and deter potential threats, according to Ethiopian newspapers.

This marks the first step of its kind in the country, in which a specialised security body has been formed to protect an internal water domain, according to Major Eskedar Berhan, head of the Inspection and Standards Department of the Ethiopian Federal Police.

Earlier, commander of the Ethiopian Air Force, General Yilma Merdasa, affirmed that “the Air Force is closely guarding the Grand Renaissance Dam and is committed to protecting it against any aggression.”

Ethiopian authorities have banned flights over the dam area for security reasons and reinforced their air forces in the region for the same purpose, deploying the Russian Pantsir-S1 air defence system, capable of countering cruise missiles, drones and guided bombs, according to military reports.

Ethiopian breakthrough

Through the 2+2 consultative mechanism (bringing together the foreign ministers and the ministers of water resources and irrigation of Egypt and Sudan), the two countries declared in a joint statement last week that the Grand Renaissance Dam “violates international law and entails serious consequences for the two downstream states.” They stressed the need to safeguard the water security of the Nile’s downstream nations — 55.5 billion cubic metres for Egypt and 18.5 billion cubic metres for Sudan.

Yet an Ethiopian breakthrough in the joint Egyptian-Sudanese position was revealed in a classified document, which indicated that Khartoum and Addis Ababa had agreed to establish a joint coordination mechanism on the Grand Renaissance Dam and to exchange data on water levels and flows on a regular basis, given the direct link between the operation of Sudan’s Roseires Dam and the Ethiopian dam.

The document, published by Al Jazeera Net, obliges Ethiopia to complete the filling of the dam gradually during the rainy season each year — July, August, September and October — with the water level ranging between 625 and 640 metres above sea level, and with storage volumes reduced in the event of drought.

Under the terms of the document, Ethiopia is committed to releasing a fixed flow to Sudan of no less than 300 cubic metres per second, and to ensuring risk mitigation if any problem is detected in the quantity or quality of water.

Signed on 26 October 2022 in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the document constitutes the first formal framework setting out the rules for filling and operating the dam between the upstream state (Ethiopia) and the immediate downstream state (Sudan). Egypt was absent, a move that could be seen as Sudan abandoning Cairo’s position, which has been to demand a comprehensive, binding agreement involving all three countries and safeguarding its historic share of Nile waters under the principles of the 1959 Agreement.

Strategic risk

Compounding Egypt’s predicament is the fact that Sudan is in no position to oppose Addis Ababa, given the ongoing civil war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces. This undermines Cairo’s efforts to build a strong strategic alliance with its southern neighbour in confronting the repercussions of the dam.

According to statements by Dr Abbas Sharaki, Professor of Geology and Water Resources at Cairo University, to Al-Hadath Al-Youm channel, Ethiopia’s ability to control the flow of Nile waters through the Grand Renaissance Dam constitutes a strategic threat to the two downstream states. It gives Ethiopia the capacity to unleash devastating floods or crippling droughts without firing a single shot.

These warnings align with bleak forecasts suggesting that Nile flows into Egypt could fall by 2 to 3 billion cubic metres annually during drought years, leading to the loss of millions of feddans of farmland and a rise in poverty rates in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

Egypt is already moving to offset its annual water deficit, estimated at around 54 billion cubic metres, through government plans to modernise irrigation and water management systems, reduce water loss, and produce 10 million cubic metres per day of desalinated water over the next five years, compared with the current 1.4 million cubic metres per day. The long-term goal is to raise production of desalinated water to 30 million cubic metres per day, according to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.

Cairo’s options

“Running in place” has been the outcome of Egyptian diplomacy after more than 13 years of talks, which ended with the announcement of the failure of the latest round of negotiations in December 2023 — only for Egyptians to wake up to an official Ethiopian invitation to attend the dam’s inauguration.

Opponents argue that the Declaration of Principles agreement signed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi with Ethiopia and Sudan in March 2015 granted Addis Ababa legal legitimacy to proceed with the construction, filling and operation of the dam.

Cairo’s options appear limited following the completion and official commissioning of the dam, against the backdrop of Egypt’s economic struggles, its waning regional and international clout, and strained relations with the United States. Washington has tied any intervention in this file on Cairo’s behalf to Egypt accepting the resettlement of Gaza’s population on its territory — a condition the Egyptian side rejects.

Egypt faces tense conditions on three of its borders — most dangerously to the east with Gaza and the Red Sea, to the south with Sudan, and to the west with Libya. This creates security and military challenges that place Cairo under geopolitical pressure and limit its ability to engage in a military confrontation with Ethiopia.

Egypt’s military options for striking the Grand Renaissance Dam are highly complex and extremely costly, given the distance between the two countries, the loss of Sudan as an ally in any potential conflict, and fears of the risks of the dam’s collapse after the completion of filling.

Researcher on African affairs, Mohamed Mahmoud, sets out other pressure cards, based on the premise of Egypt playing an influential role in the Horn of Africa through a military presence in Somalia, an alliance with Eritrea, and closer ties with Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo — moves that could impose regional isolation on Addis Ababa.

Among the available options is internationalising the issue and resorting to international arbitration, provided that the disputing parties agree, or accepting Gulf and international mediation with Ethiopia that might allow Egypt to secure understandings and arrangements on the rules of filling and operation, especially during drought seasons.

A final option, perhaps unlikely or postponed, but which the logic of interests may ultimately dictate, is abandoning the “stick” and offering the “carrot” to the Ethiopians, in search of full or partial coordination that would limit potential water risks in the future.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.