
Europe turns to the Gulf to strengthen energy, security ties
https://arab.news/2ad2z
The relationship between the Middle East and Europe has been shaped by centuries of cultural, political, and economic interaction. Today, energy security and geopolitics, in particular, have become even bigger drivers of the important bilateral relationship.
Only last week, Jasem Al-Budaiwi, the Gulf Cooperation Council secretary-general, spoke with EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica about a proposed new Gulf-European conference on energy security. This happened in a meeting on the sidelines of the Brussels Ninth Conference on Syria, which focused on helping ensure the success of the post-Assad transition.
On the geopolitical front, too, key European nations, including France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, are engaging in the Arab plan to rebuild Gaza. These nations are among the key proponents of a renewed ceasefire leading to a sustainable, fair plan for peace.
Europe is concerned by how much political instability has grown in the Middle East in recent times, with the conflict in Gaza spreading to other areas, including Lebanon. While economic relations with Europe have been largely unaffected so far, this will not inevitably be the case in the future.
These discussions build from recent EU-Arab summits, organized in cooperation with the Arab League and European Parliament, to identify and promote common interests and values collectively — specifically, singling out key priority areas for cooperation, taking into account regional and global challenges.
Yet, it is the GCC economic agenda that is perhaps the most prominent in the Europe-Middle East dialogue at present. Not only is a Gulf-European conference on energy security being explored, there is also new impetus for a GCC-EU trade agreement to be agreed during Ursula von der Leyen's second term as European Commission president in the period till late 2029.
This is a key part of the EU's plans to engage key emerging market powers much more, following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, and also Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In recent weeks, von der Leyen has agreed a trade deal with the Mercosur bloc, including Brazil and Argentina, in South America; kick-started trade talks in India; and visited South Africa, the host of this year's G20 summit.
The GCC, with its headquarters in Riyadh, is another top economic target. The bloc — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait — is a major source of global economic activity with total economic output of around $2 trillion in 2022. According to the World Bank, if the GCC continues to grow at a 'business as usual' rate, combined GDP will grow to a projected $6 trillion by 2050.
One of the big prizes for the EU of a GCC deal could be further, open access to investment from Gulf sovereign wealth funds. These tend to be cross-sector investors that often take a long-term, multi-decade economic perspective.
Energy security and geopolitics are likely to remain at the heart of current Europe-GCC dialogues.
Andrew Hammond
The EU is the second-largest trade partner for the GCC countries, generating €170 billion ($185 billion) in trade in 2023. Much of this exchange is related to natural resources.
In 2023, imports of mineral fuels accounted for over 75 percent of EU imports from GCC countries. Moreover, since 2020, fuel imports have more than tripled, in large part due to a sharp shift in the EU's supply sources caused by Russia's invasion.
According to the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, of more than 180 new energy agreements agreed by the EU since the Ukraine war began, the GCC is the region that has signed the largest number of deals. Well over one-fifth of such agreements have been inked with the UAE (24 deals) leading the way, alongside Qatar (11), Saudi Arabia (four), Oman (two), and Bahrain (one).
At present, EU-GCC relations are based on a cooperation agreement signed in 1989 that established regular dialogue on topics including economic relations, climate change, energy, and the environment. However, the EU would like a trade deal and, in 2022, Luigi Di Maio, the former Italian foreign affairs minister, was appointed as the first ever EU Special Representative for the Gulf to try to develop a stronger, comprehensive, and more strategic partnership.
In 2023, the EU ramped up efforts to try to revitalize EU-GCC negotiations for a trade agreement. The GCC has signed relatively few such agreements to date, including a pact with South Korea in 2023, more than 15 years after talks began.
The GCC also entered into trade talks with the UK in 2022, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Saudi Arabia and the UAE last December. Total bilateral trade is worth about £59 billion, making the GCC bloc as a whole equivalent to the UK's fourth-largest non-EU export market behind the US, China, and Switzerland.
It is possible that wider developments could reinforce this dynamic of closer GCC-Europe economic cooperation. This includes potential steps toward implementation of a proposed India-Middle East-Europe corridor to foster connectivity and integration with Asia via a proposed route from India through the UAE, Saudi Arabia and into Greece.
The corridor concept, which would comprise vast road, railroad, and shipping networks, was given new impetus in September 2023 at the G20 summit in New Delhi. A memorandum of understanding was signed to try to develop the project by the governments of India, the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, and the 27-member EU bloc.
Taken together, energy security and geopolitics are likely to remain at the heart of current Europe-GCC dialogues. These would be boosted significantly if trade deals are agreed in the second half of the 2020s with the Starmer and von der Leyen administrations.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Arab News
7 hours ago
- Arab News
Two-state solution summit should be bold and daring
When France and Saudi Arabia co-chair the International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Palestinian Question and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution in New York later this month, it might be the last opportunity for the international community to salvage a peace agreement along these lines. Beyond making a bold statement about its commitment to bringing this conflict to a peaceful end, it must send a message, in no uncertain terms, that it will not tolerate any attempts to block such a solution. The wording of the invitation to the willing participants reflects a determination to make this gathering count, by stating that 'the conference is intended to serve as a point of no return, paving the way for ending the occupation and promoting a permanent settlement based on the two-state solution.' But to be successful, it must be followed by courageous actions. To begin with, France, the UK and other EU members that have not done so already should recognize Palestinian statehood. This would be a long overdue but necessary acknowledgement that recognizing Palestinian statehood is not conditional on the Palestinian leadership succumbing to any demand for concessions by Israel. Such recognition will remove a crucial aspect of the asymmetry between the two protagonists in one of the longest-running conflicts in modern history. It will ensure that all who live in historical Palestine enjoy the same human, political and civil rights and are capable of fulfilling their national aspirations and individual potential, as was already envisaged in UN Resolution 181 of 1947, better known as the Partition Plan. It is of immense significance that this conference will be co-chaired by Saudi-Arabia and France, representing a unique cooperation. It brings together a leading regional force that, in 2002, initiated the most promising peace plan that could have put this conflict behind us, had it not been rejected by Israel, and a major European force that is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council. This must have enough weight, together with the other high-level participants, to encourage the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to understand that it is high time for them to move forward along the route to a two-state solution deal. There are many out there who are skeptical that the two-state solution is still possible and who suspect that such a conference is either a naive attempt or simply lip service to bringing about a peace that will never materialize. Both views are misplaced and unhelpful, not because a two-state solution is a panacea by itself, but because, among all possible alternatives, it is still the most viable answer, although it does need to be adjusted to reflect changing circumstances since the Oslo process collapsed. Most promising is a confederation model that is, in principle, a two-state solution in a one-state reality, which best reflects the current state of affairs. France, the UK and EU members that have not done so already should recognize Palestinian statehood. Yossi Mekelberg The alternative to a two-state solution is to once more let the current situation drag on and risk even worse consequences than the world has witnessed over the last 20 months, for both peoples, with far-reaching implications for the region and beyond. There are also three possible models of a one-state solution — and they are all either unattractive or unviable. The ultrareligious-nationalists in Israel aspire to a single state in which the West Bank and Gaza are annexed by Israel and as many Palestinians as possible are 'encouraged' to leave to ensure an absolute Jewish majority in historic Palestine, possibly resulting in another Nakba. For Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the one-state solution is one in which there is no place for an Israeli state — and their brand of Islamism would hardly leave room for a tolerant state for either Israelis or Palestinians. The third version of a one-state solution is one of equal rights for all its citizens, Israelis and Palestinians alike. Nevertheless, as much as this is, on the face of it, a commendable vision of both communities putting behind them many decades of conflict and bloodshed and finding a way to peacefully coexist under one system of governance and one constitution, sharing a sentiment of a common future and destiny, it is no more than pleasant fantasy. There is no modality for such a rapid transformation and past experiences, such as those of Yugoslavia, Cyprus and even Czechoslovakia, have ended in separation, sometimes accompanied by bloodshed. The conference must see itself as possibly a last-chance saloon for advancing the cause of the two-state solution. Yossi Mekelberg In order for these ideas, which range between inevitable disaster and the utopian, to be prevented from taking hold of the Israeli-Palestinian discourse, the conference in New York must see itself as possibly a last-chance saloon for advancing the cause of the two-state solution. Hence, it must take concrete measures to initiate a peace process by setting a tight timeline and milestones on the way to establishing an independent Palestinian state along the approximate lines of the 1967 borders. If such a framework is introduced — with incentives for both sides to adhere to it and severe consequences if they do not — there is a good chance for a new momentum toward peace to emerge out of this international gathering. Moreover, if, by the time the delegates of the conference convene, a new ceasefire deal is not concluded, the first message from the conference must be a demand from the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to this effect. It must be one that will also see the release of the hostages and allow unlimited humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as a first step toward the reconstruction of the Strip and the rehabilitation of the Palestinian people and their society, along a path toward a comprehensive peace agreement. It is true that the main responsibility for resolving the conflict still rests with the two parties themselves. And it was a previous US secretary of state who said, following the collapse of his peace initiative in 2014, that 'the United States cannot want peace more than the parties to the conflict.' Much water has flowed down the Jordan river since then, but the sentiment is still correct. Yet, collectively, the international community has the ability to use its levers of power to make both sides understand that it is in their interest to bring about peace — and, should either side deliberately derail the peace process, to make them accountable. This French-Saudi initiative to convene a conference on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be timelier, despite and maybe because it is taking place at the lowest and most volatile and tragic point in relations between the two main antagonists. This should serve as enough of an impetus not to fail again, as the price of failure, playing out on our screens every single day, is intolerable for those who live with it and unforgivable for those who do not stop it.


3yon News
10 hours ago
- 3yon News
الجوازات السعودية تؤكد جاهزية جميع المنافذ لإنهاء إجراءات مغادرة ضيوف الرحمن
STORY: :: A Russian air attack hit a high-rise building next to the office of the European delegation to Ukraine :: Kyiv, Ukraine :: June 10, 2025 :: Katarina Mathernova, Ambassador of European Union to Ukraine 'Last night was horrendous attack on Kyiv with multiple drones, hundreds of drones and missiles. And in fact, a building right across the street from the European Union delegation was actually severely damaged. And a car in our parking lot got damaged by debris.' Glass facade was ruined on several floors and an exterior wall was damaged on two floors. The Russian attack also damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site located in the historic centre of Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Mykola Tochytskyi said. One person died in the attack on Kyiv, city authorities said. At least four people were treated in hospital after seven of the capital's 10 districts were hit, city officials said.

Al Arabiya
12 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
European Commission unveils 18th package of Russia sanctions aimed at energy, military
The European Commission has proposed an 18th package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, aimed at Moscow's energy revenues and military industry, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday. The new package proposes banning transactions with Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines as well as banks that engage in sanctions circumvention. The Commission has also proposed lowering the Group of Seven nations (G7) price cap on Russian crude oil to $45 a barrel from $60 barrel. The proposal lists more vessels that make up Russia's shadow fleet and oil trading companies. EU countries will start debating the proposal this week.