Send page Print

Europe & Middle East / Working Paper

The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council

01/05/2007 By Ana Echagüe

Despite increased European foreign policy coordination and presence in most areas of the world the Gulf region and more specifically the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) continue to represent an area of neglect.

One need only compare policies towards the Gulf with policies towards the North African and Middle Eastern states included within the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) to witness this deficit.

Despite the shortcomings of the EMP this initiative represents a coordinated and embedded European strategy towards the southern Mediterranean that has not been extended to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

This is all the more surprising given the fact that the Arabian Peninsula concentrates several pivotal issues of international concern, including energy security, Middle Eastern regional security, counterterrorism and debates over Arab democratic reform.

European weight in this region remains negligible, and the EU as a collective entity has failed to develop a comprehensive and coherent policy towards this crucial part of the Middle East.

This neglect is explained by two European judgements: first, that the Gulf does not present the kind of acute geopolitical urgency that would merit paying the costs associated with a greater engagement in the region; second, that the EU has negligible capacity to affect social, economic or political change in the Gulf and that its interests are thus best served by stability-oriented caution.

Such judgements might contain a healthy dose of realism; but the EU may also pay a price for its passivity in the Gulf.

With the support of:

 

 

 

 

Download the full version of this publication, available in English (244 kB)
Spanish (253 kB)

Keywords

Energy Security EU Foreign Policy European Union Middle East Political Reform Qatar Saudi Arabia Security United Arab Emirates

Related publications

• Europe and the Gulf: strategic neglect
• Political change in the Gulf States: beyond Cosmetic Reform?
• Political reform and the prospects for democratic transition in the gulf

Bio author: Ana Echagüe

Graduate in International Relations and Art History from Tufts University and obtained her Masters in International Relations from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Prior to joining FRIDE, she was Deputy Director at the University of the Middle East Project in Madrid. She has also worked as a financial analyst at Lehman Brothers in London.