Mr Morsi is making this trip to signal - as he recently has to GCC countries and China, and will shortly do with the United States - that Egypt needs help to get its economy back on track. Pledges from the May 2011 Deauville summit remain unfulfilled, and Europe like many potential donors (or debt-relievers) and investors has remained cautious about proceeding while chaos prevailed under the military-led transition. But that situation is changing, even if Egyptians still have some way to go, as Mr Morsi's recent assertion of his power and the forced retirement of military leaders has shown. He and his new government are sending the message, in every way they can, that Egypt is once again open for business.
With Egypt soon set to ink a deal with the IMF, which should commit it to greater fiscal prudence in exchange for budgetary support, international donors should move to disburse their own loans and aid packages. Of course, Europe going through its own economic pain - governments may not feel so generous as they did in early 2011. Yet there is money in the pipeline - the €6.9bn earmarked for the European Neighborhood Policy for 2011-13 is one source, another are the promising infrastructure programs envisaged under the politically damaged, but essentially sound infrastructure programs of the Union for the Mediterranean.
In addition to funds, Egyptians are also looking for a vote of confidence - trade missions to encourage investment in their country, a thumbs-up as a tourist destination, and a roadmap for greater trade integration into the eurozone, Egypt's first export destination. There is no better way to help stabilize post-revolution Egypt than helping the new government generate jobs and growth.
A second question Europe must deal with is that Mr Morsi is an Islamist. For much of Europe's political class - which until recently frequently backed dictators precisely because they feared their alternatives would be religious - this is a source of concern. But it is more important to see Mr Morsi as a democratically elected leader - and a politician who has pledged to be a democrat in more than a strict, majoritarian way.
In the past, Europe often bowed to the Mubarak regime's wishes and demoted human rights concerns in its relationship with Egypt. Mr Morsi may have been democratically elected, a fact that should be celebrated. But there is no reason to give him a free pass on those issues where Europe, and many Egyptians, have concerns - today or in the future.
Finally, Europeans should be aware that as the Middle East is changing, so is Egypt's position within it. Mr Morsi, in his early foreign policy forays, has signaled his desire for good relationships with multiple actors, moving away from the single-minded focus on the US-Egypt relationship that existed under Hosni Mubarak. His most innovative initiative thus far in regional affairs - creating a channel, alongside Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to engage Iran on the Syrian crisis - is worth heeding.
The new Egyptian president, in other words, is not merely visiting foreign capitals to ask for help to face his country's immediate problems. He is also reforging his country's relationship with its traditional partners. Mr Morsi now presides over a fast-changing country in a region undergoing its biggest strategic transformation in decades. To hesitate now, to play a game of wait-and-see, to hedge one's bets - to be satisfied, as Europe has all too often been toward a part of the world with which it has rich ties, with playing second fiddle - could very well be to miss a historic opportunity.
