Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced last week that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been completed and will be officially inaugurated in September.
The latest statement builds on a previous one in the Ethiopian parliament in March that also highlighted the fact that the dam is complete, said Abbas Sharaki, professor of geology at Cairo University.
The statements are primarily directed at the Ethiopian people, who have long awaited the completion of the dam and its claimed benefits, Sharaki said.
The Ethiopian statements use frequently repeated phrases such as the “GERD is a shared opportunity,” the “[GERD is] not threatening or harming to Egypt,” and Ethiopia is “willing to engage constructively” on the GERD, Sharaki added.
Ahmed had not only stated that the dam poses no threat to Egypt but had also said that the water in Egypt’s Aswan High Dam had not decreased by a single litre and extended a provocative invitation to Egypt and Sudan to attend the dam’s opening ceremony, Sharaki noted.
Egypt has repeatedly and firmly expressed its rejection of Ethiopia’s unilateral acts in building and operating the dam without reaching a legally binding agreement on its filling and operation.
President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and Sudanese Sovereign Council Chairman Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures taken by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile during their meeting in Cairo last week.
Egyptian Minister of Water Resources Hani Sewilam recently highlighted Egypt’s firm rejection of Ethiopia’s repeated unilateral measures with regard to the GERD. “Ethiopia has taken these measures without a binding agreement with the downstream countries and despite genuine concerns by Egypt and Sudan,” Sewilam noted.
He described the Ethiopian acts as “a clear violation of international law,” especially regulations related to the fair and equitable use of international waterways and the prevention of causing harm to neighbouring countries.
Sewilam’s statement came during a meeting between Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and ambassadors who will soon start their terms in Egyptian diplomatic missions abroad. The meeting was held in the headquarters of Egypt’s Foreign Ministry in Cairo.
Abdelatty described water security as a potential existential threat, stressing that the country would not allow its historical Nile water rights to be compromised.
In a recent television interview, Abdelatty noted that Egypt’s annual water needs exceed 90 billion cubic metres (bcm), while its Nile share stands at just 55.5 bcm. Per capita water availability is under 500 cubic metres per year, well below the United Nations water poverty threshold of 1,000.
“This poses a major challenge for the state… placing Egypt in a state of severe water scarcity,” he said.
The concrete work at the GERD has already been completed, and six of the 13 turbines have been installed. Two were installed in February and August 2022, two in August 2024, and the last two were tested in February this year.
According to Sharaki, the original plan of the GERD was to install 16 turbines, but those were later reduced to 13 for no clearly stated reasons.
The claim that the GERD does not pose a threat to Egypt and Sudan is also not correct.
“The dam’s capacity has increased from 11.1 billion cubic metres in the original US study to 64 billion cubic metres, which presents a genuine threat to an area fraught with geological problems such as earthquakes as well as annual flooding, making it a water bomb that could explode at any moment,” Sharaki said.
In addition, withholding 60 billion cubic metres of water over five years without agreement has caused significant harm, costing Egypt more than LE500 billion in measures to ease the dam’s harmful impacts on its citizens.
The 1929 and 1959 treaties gave Egypt and Sudan their present water quotas of 55.5 and 18 bcm, respectively, of Nile water. It also gave them the right to veto projects on the Nile that would deprive them of their share of water. But Ethiopia said it should not be bound by these treaties, and it started building the dam in 2011.
Between 2020 and 2024, Ethiopia unilaterally completed the dam’s five-stage filling and began operating the turbines without an agreement on filling or operations with Egypt and Sudan.
In December 2023, Cairo announced the end of negotiations on the dam, citing Ethiopia’s refusal to seriously engage on proposed legal or technical solutions. Returning to the negotiating table as soon as possible remains Egypt’s demand and pragmatic option, Sharaki said.
The present and future operation of the GERD requires draining water either through the turbines or flood gates and then refilling it during the rainy season from July to September, explained Sharaki, adding that these steps require continuous coordination to avoid any damage to Egypt and Sudan and to benefit Ethiopia.
“The full storage of water behind the dam without coordination poses a genuine risk to Sudan in the first place and then to Egypt,” he concluded.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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