Last Friday, Mohamed Morsi, the first civilian and democratic President in the history of the Egyptian Republic, appointed US educated Hisham Qandil as Prime Minister.

… Egyptian commentators distinguish between the uprisings… and the revolution that will transform the country- Simon Busuttil

Mr Qandil was Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources in the interim government of Kamal El-Ganzouri, which now hands over power to him.

His main challenge is to rev up the engines of economic growth in order to begin to satisfy the high expectations generated by the clamorous ending of Hosni Mubarak’s rule last year. It is economic well-being along with the consolidation of democracy that will transform the uprisings into a true revolution.

Indeed, Egyptian commentators distinguish between the uprisings that overthrew Mr Mubarak and the revolution that will transform the country. Political change has taken place in Egypt but not the revolution. In other words, the real change is yet to come.

There is still a danger that the process may stop and throw the country back into chaos. The economic and social factors that led to the collapse of the old regime have not yet been satisfactorily addressed and, if anything, they have gotten worse.

The military have retained a lot of power and still insist on trying a few hundred civilians arrested during last year’s uprisings. This is unacceptable in democratic countries.

President Morsi, no doubt worried by the fluidity of the situation, is taking no chances. Some weeks ago, at the start of Ramadan, he embarked on a daily question-and-answer programme on radio to answer questions by citizens. This wonderful idea has been robbed of spontaneity because the programme is pre-recorded. Nevertheless, it is a positive step, though the proof of the pudding will come from improvements on the ground.

The community of democratic states, particularly the EU, now needs to play a positive role and provide the right kind of support to help Egypt overcome the difficult obstacles ahead. But such states have to navigate a tricky path between encouraging democratisation and appearing to be interfering in internal affairs.

With a population of about 82 million, Egypt is the largest Arab country. What happens there affects the rest of the Arab world and the EU can hardly afford to get it wrong. Thus, the fate of democracy in Egypt is crucial. It may well become a trend-setter whichever direction it takes and with diverse regional impacts in the different Arab countries.

Egypt has a very complex society. It has a sizeable Christian community, the largest in the Middle East, thought to represent about 10 per cent of its population. It also has a developed civil society, political institutions that resemble those in democratic countries and an established judiciary.

The political landscape is fragmented and composed of a number of parties, dominated by the Freedom and Justice Party, which we, in the west, habitually refer to as the Islamist Party, a description that they reject. So far, the party has kept to the path of moderation and promoted highly-educated Egyptians to the higher echelons of government.

The military are very powerful, a state within the state, with a history going back to the 19th century. The army plays the role of a constitutional “guardian”, similar to that played by the Turkish army after Kemal Ataturk founded the Turkish Republic as a secular, Muslim state. But in Egypt, as in Turkey before the reforms of the last decade, which saw the clipping of the army’s wings, one cannot really say what the army is actually safeguarding: its citizenry or itself.

Beneath the surface there are tensions. In June, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces promulgated a constitutional amendment that severely curtailed the powers of the President. So when he won the first democratic electoral contest, President Morsi found that he actually had only a few powers to wield.

In June, the army also dissolved the “Islamist” dominated Parliament, which was reinstated by Mr Morsi a couple of days after his election. But the Constitutional Court blocked the President’s decision. The struggle has, therefore, shifted to the courts where the wrangling continues.

Everything now seems to hang on a new electoral law that is being written to overcome this impasse and, presumably, to ensure a truly, democratically elected Parliament after fresh elections. The contents of this law will also determine the kind of democracy that Egypt will eventually embrace.

Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, recently visited Egypt and stressed that democracy must be built from within and not imported from abroad. This is important to underscore because, for many decades, western countries, including the EU, often gave the impression that they favoured meddling in the name of democracy.

Yet, if Europe wishes to play a positive role in the democratisation process in the Arab World it must employ its resources more ably than it did in the past. A strong proactive role makes a great deal of sense, particularly since we are here talking about our Mediterranean neighbourhood. But it must be a carefully calibrated role.

Let us hope that Egypt makes a success of its extraordinary revolution. It cannot afford to fail.

simon.busuttil@europarl.europa.eu

Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.