Brussels, 28/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering, will travel to Cairo on 24 February, a few days ahead of a meeting of the EuroMed Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) Bureau meeting in Athens on 28 February, chaired by Greece. The Bureau is made up of Egypt, Tunisia and the European Parliament until the plenary session. Pottering's visit to Egypt is designed to be a political gesture in the direction of the Egyptian authorities to ease their bitterness following the adoption by the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 17 January of a resolution on the way democratic opposition movements are treated in Egypt. The European Parliament adopted a resolution critical of the situation in Egypt despite warnings in the form of a letter ahead of the EP vote from the speaker of the Egyptian parliament, Fathi Sourour, to his EP counterpart, Hans-Gert Pottering, who made huge attempts to water down the impact of the resolution, voted through by a very small number of MEPs. Following the vote, Cairo decided to veto bilateral and regional meetings with the EU, but Messrs Sourour and Pottering reportedly kept in touch, with Pottering hoping that Egypt would decide to review its decisions. Egypt felt it could not do so without a conciliatory gesture from the EU, failing a formal apology from the EU, which Europeans described as inconceivable. (F.B.)