Egypt's Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazi announced Tuesday that Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia had agreed on a new roadmap in the Renaissance Dam negotiations in their seventh meeting, held in the Sudanese capital Khartoum last week.
The minister said that the three countries, which previously agreed to consult two international firms in conducting technical studies on the dam, one French and the other Dutch, have agreed to give the French firm 70 percent of the work and the Dutch firm 30 percent. The firms are to study the possible effects of the dam on downstream countries.
In addition, the minister said that the findings of the French firm would be received no later than Aug. 12 and that they would then be studied by each country separately, after which the eighth tripartite meeting will be held in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa between Aug. 20 and Aug. 22 to discuss signing contracts with the consultancy firms.
The 3-day meeting that focused on the roles the consultancy firms would play in the new road-map witnessed disagreements between the Egyptian and Ethiopian delegations, according to independent newspaper Youm7 .
The disagreements reportedly arose because the Ethiopian side thought the French office should be the main one and the Dutch office should serve as a suboffice to the French, while the Egyptian side insisted that each office should be independent of the other but that both offices should still work together without eliminating either one from the process.
Moghazi said that despite the differences in opinion, the negotiations were successful in reaching consensus in the end, due to the three countries' insistence on maintaining cooperation between them and prioritizing the public's interest.
The seventh meeting's roadmap is considered a milestone in the negotiations since the three countries started cooperating together to resolve the controversial issue, as previous meetings ended without reaching substantial agreements. Moghazi said that during the past year, the negotiations between the three countries saw 10 meetings, seven of them ministerial.
Ethiopia's Renaissance dam, scheduled to be completed in 2017, is a gravity dam on the Blue Nile River that is expected to be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant. The dam, which is feared to negatively affect Egypt's share of the Nile's water, has been the source of controversy and damaged relations between Egypt and Ethiopia for years.
However, since the beginning of 2015, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have been cooperating. In March, the three countries signed a declaration of principles on the dam agreeing to safeguard their interests, and in June, the three countries formed a supreme trilateral council to further strengthen ties.