[Al Ahram] Morsi did make some goodwill gestures to the opposition but he did not go far enough to break the deadlock. When the constitutional court rejected the election law passed by the Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament, he agreed to put back parliamentary elections from April until late in the year.

He also hinted he was willing to change the reviled prosecutor, accused of Islamist bias, but never actually did so.

Other incidents combined to deepen mistrust between Morsi and the opposition, and put a deal out of reach.

"The main problem was that there was a complete lack of trust among all of them," a European diplomat said.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice newspaper splashed an article accusing senior liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei
Egyptian law scholar and sometime Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. After the fall of Mubarak he ran for president. He lost.
of receiving massive funds from the United Arab Emirates. A National Salvation Front statement branded Morsi a "fascist."

Morsi's party, which saw the judiciary as packed with supporters of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
bent on obstructing its policies, backed another Islamist party's bill to remove 3,000 judges by lowering their retirement age to 60 from 70.

The opposition denounced a Brotherhood power grab. When Morsi eventually reshuffled the cabinet, he kept the widely criticised Kandil and made no opening to the opposition.

Leon, a former Spanish and EU diplomat steeped in the Arab-Israeli grinding of the peace processor, was appointed EU special representative for the Southern Mediterranean in 2011 after the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria.

He wielded neither the big chequebook nor the military firepower and military-to-military relations that underpin U.S. diplomacy. Leon's advantage, acknowledged by Moslem Brüderbund officials now ejected from office, was that he was seen by all sides as an honest broker. But he never managed to "deliver" the Brotherhood to a deal its leaders were not sure they wanted.