The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council: Towards a New Path (Contemporary Gulf Studies) 9811602786, 9789811602788

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CONTEMPORARY GULF STUDIES SERIES EDITORS: STEVEN WRIGHT · ABDULLAH BAABOOD

The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council Towards a New Path Edited by Adel Abdel Ghafar · Silvia Colombo

Contemporary Gulf Studies

Series Editors Steven Wright, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar Abdullah Baabood, Chair of the State of Qatar for Islamic Area Studies and Visiting Professor, School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Salient Features: • The Gulf lies at the intersection of regional conflicts and the competing interests of global powers and therefore publications in the series reflect this complex environment. • The series will see publication on the dynamic nature of how the Gulf region has been undergoing enormous changes attracting regional and international interests. • The series is managed through Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, which has emerged as the leading institution within the Gulf region offering graduate degrees in Gulf Studies at both masters and doctoral level. Aims and Scope: This series offer a platform from which scholarly work on the most pressing issues within the Gulf region will be examined. The scope of the book series will encompass work being done on the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait in addition to Iraq, Iran and Yemen. The series will focus on three types of volumes: Single and jointly authored monograph; Thematic edited books; Course text books. The scope of the series will include publications relating to the countries of focus, in terms of the following themes which will allow for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary inquiry on the Gulf region to flourish: Politics and political development Regional and international relations Regional cooperation and integration Defense and security Economics and development Food and water security Energy and environment Civil society and the private sector Identity, migration, youth, gender and employment Health and education Media, literature, arts & culture.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15318

Adel Abdel Ghafar · Silvia Colombo Editors

The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council Towards a New Path

Editors Adel Abdel Ghafar Brookings Foreign Policy and Brookings Doha Center Doha, Qatar

Silvia Colombo Istituto Affari Internazionali Roma, Italy

ISSN 2662-320X ISSN 2662-3218 (electronic) Contemporary Gulf Studies ISBN 978-981-16-0278-8 ISBN 978-981-16-0279-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover design: eStudio Calamar Cover image: Fernando Tatay, shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To Lina and Nicola

Foreword

Back in 1985, representatives of the then European Community and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) met for the first time. It was a meeting both sides described as historic and was followed by the 1988 Cooperation Agreement, which is considered the anchor of the EU-GCC relations. The 1988 Cooperation Agreement aimed at strengthening the stability in the Gulf region, facilitating political and economic relations between both sides, and broadening economic and technical cooperation in various fields such as energy, industry, trade and services, agriculture, fisheries, investment, science, technology and environment. It was a promising start, but the history of the EU-GCC relations proved to be challenging. For example, in the Cooperation Agreement both sides committed to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which until today is not in place. The negotiations started in 1990 but the GCC countries suspended them several times; the last attempt to get the negotiations back on track was made in 2002 but they were suspended again in 2008. Since then, negotiations were replaced with informal contacts. Furthermore, the 1988 Cooperation Agreement has established institutional mechanisms to advance the relations between both sides including an annual joint ministerial meeting between the EU and the GCC foreign ministers, joint cooperation committees at senior official level, and annual senior officials meeting. The last EU-GCC ministerial meeting took place in Brussels in July 2016, but since then the meetings were suspended due to the internal GCC crisis.

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The European Union has a strategic interest in enhancing its political dialogue and sectoral cooperation with the GCC countries as close partners building on key mutual interests and interdependencies, from the volume of region-to-region trade—the GCC is the EU’s fifth largest export market and the EU is the grouping’s biggest trading partner—to shared interests in regional stability. For this reason, the EU has been steadily reinforcing its presence in the region by opening Delegation Offices in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, respectively in 2004, 2013 and 2019. The EU has also concluded bilateral Cooperation Agreements with Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman. Though one can argue that the evolvement of EU-GCC relations is replaced by bilateralism, the abovementioned trends show the persistent willingness of the EU to deepen its relations with the GCC as a regional organisation. And there are good reasons for that. Over the past years, we witnessed fundamental regional and international changes which have impacted the EU and the GCC countries alike. On the one hand, there are clear signs that the United States is withdrawing from the Middle East. On the other hand, China is reinforcing its engagement in the region. Together with the ongoing conflicts in the region, these changes threaten the EU and GCC’s political, economic and security interests. Accordingly, there is need for the EU and the GCC to deepen their cooperation in order to facilitate the emergence of a regional mechanism that eases tensions and fosters sustainable development, which will benefit all parties. Against this backdrop, the Regional Programme Gulf States at KonradAdenauer-Stiftung convened in October 2019 a two-day workshop in Brussels entitled “The European Union and the GCC: The Path to a New Relationship”. Policymakers, academics and think tank representatives from Europe and the Gulf States discussed and analysed the various aspects of the relationship. Following the workshop, key themes have been identified and distinguished experts were invited to contribute chapters to this volume, which aims to provide a background on the history and the present status of EU-GCC relations as well as to sketch out the path forward towards a new relationship between the EU and the GCC. We would like to thank Adel Abdel Ghafar and Silvia Colombo for their excellent work as editors of this book. They were not only the driving force of this project, but are also true experts on the subject. We thank the contributing authors for their commitment to this project and we extend

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our gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers of Palgrave Macmillan for their significant comments and constructive feedback on the manuscript draft. This publication is part of the activities undertaken by the Regional Programme Gulf States where we strive to foster dialogue with and in the Gulf States. We aspire to contribute to a better understanding between Europe and the Gulf countries and believe a deeper understanding between the two regions provides a strong basis for reducing prejudices, stereotypes and serves as a stepping stone to further economic relations, enhance security and reduce regional conflicts. Amman, Jordan December 2020

Fabian Blumberg Mohammad Yaghi

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support of the Regional Programme Gulf States at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and its director Fabian Blumberg. We also deeply appreciate the support of the Programme’s team in Amman, in particular Mohammad Yaghi who was an excellent facilitator for the entire duration of the project. An edited volume of this magnitude and scope involves many moving parts, but first and foremost it depends on the quality of its contributors. To that end, we are indebted to the world-class scholars who have contributed excellent chapters to this project. Not only did they write insightful chapters, but were able to provide drafts and re-drafts in a timely manner, despite all the challenges that unfolded in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When we approached Steven Wright and Abdullah Baabood, the series editors, to discuss publishing the project within their Gulf Studies Series at Palgrave Macmillan, they supported the project from day one and have done ever since. Both of us have collaborated with Steven and Abdullah over the years and consider them friends, valued colleagues and look forward to many more years of collaboration. We would also like to acknowledge and thank the Palgrave Macmillan team who were excellent to work with. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the support of our families, in particular our respective spouses Jane and Matteo. 2020 was a challenging year for all, and we are grateful for their support with all the

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

work from home, homeschooling, relocation and all the other challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Challenges aside, during the duration of the project both of us were blessed in our respective families with newborns—Lina and Nicola, to whom this book is dedicated.

Contents

Introduction Adel Abdel Ghafar and Silvia Colombo The Unfulfilled Potential of EU-GCC Multilateral Relations and Shifting Geopolitical and Domestic Realities Structure of the Book Overcoming Structural Constraints in EU-GCC Relations: The Format, the Content and the Actors Silvia Colombo EU-GCC Relations: Historical Depth and Stock Taking Unpacking Structural Constraints in EU-GCC Relations Multilateral vs. Bilateral Cooperation It’s the Economy, Stupid! Institutional vs. People-to-People Relations Changing Contextual Dynamics Impacting on EU-GCC Relations Conclusion and the Way Forward Tailoring a Local Approach: Extending EU Policy Objectives to Facilitate Technical and Vocational Education to Work Transitions in Saudi Arabia Hanaa Almoaibed Introduction TVET in the GCC Countries

1

3 6 9 11 15 15 19 23 26 29

33 33 34

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TVET in Saudi Arabia The EU and TVET in Saudi Arabia Young People, Choice and TVET Policies Key Channels for Cooperation Between the EU and Saudi TVET: Strengthening Push and Pull Factors Conclusion Cultural and Religious Diplomacy as Soft Power in EU-GCC Relations Kristian Coates Ulrichsen Introduction Cultural and Religious Diplomacy in EU-GCC Relations New Forms of Power and Influence Cultural and Religious Diplomacy in Action Higher Education and Research Partnerships Museums and Culture Religious Interaction Sport as a Tool of Soft Power Conclusion Domestic Economic Plans and Visions and Opportunities for Cooperation with Europe Cinzia Bianco and Sebastian Sons Introduction The GCC and Their “Visions” The “Visions” The Role of the EU Job Creation and Entrepreneurship Renewable Energy Tourism, Sports, Entertainment The Tech Industry Logistics Development Cooperation: Prospects for an EU-GCC Triangulation Conclusion and Outlook Navigating the New Era: Energy and Environmental Considerations in EU-GCC Relations Steven Wright The Evolution of an EU Energy and Climate Policy Agenda

38 43 46 49 54 57 57 59 61 65 65 68 70 75 77 79 79 82 86 89 90 92 93 95 96 98 102 105 107

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Energy Security in the European Union Geopolitics Trends in the Global Energy Market Concluding Observations and Policy Implications

111 118 122

EU-GCC Trade and Investments Omar Al-Ubaydli Introduction A Historical Perspective on EU and GCC Foreign Economic Strategies EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations Trade in Goods Investment Prospects for Deepening EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations Recent Developments in the EU Recent Developments in the GCC Conclusion: Are Relations Likely to Deepen or Retreat?

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EU-GCC Parliamentary Relations: Multilateral Challenges, Bilateral Gains Courtney Freer Introduction Recent Meetings Between the EU and the GCC Bahrain Domestic Legislature EU Engagement Kuwait Domestic Legislature EU Engagement Oman Domestic Legislature EU Engagement Qatar Domestic Legislature EU Engagement Saudi Arabia Domestic Legislature EU Engagement United Arab Emirates Domestic Legislature

125 128 133 133 139 142 142 147 150 153 153 155 156 156 158 162 162 165 167 167 168 170 170 172 175 175 176 179 179

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EU Engagement Conclusion: Opportunities and Challenges Moving Forward

181 183

EU Approaches to the Gulf Crisis Christian Koch Framing the EU-GCC Relationship The EU Responses to the GCC Crisis Implications of the June 2017 GCC Rift for EU-GCC Relations Outlook and Conclusion

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Gulf Security Architecture and the Potential Role of Europe Adel Abdel Ghafar and Andrew Leber Introduction and Context Gulf Security—Key Players and Their Views on Regional Security The New Middle East Cold War Iran Saudi Arabia The Second Front Qatar The United Arab Emirates Other Actors Other Members of the GCC The United States Russia China Israel Europe: Limited Engagement, Considerable Leverage What Role for Europe in Fostering Security Cooperation in the Gulf? Loose Coordination, Piecemeal Engagement Rebuilding a Nuclear Deal with Iran Towards a Europe-Centred Strategic Alliance Conclusion

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Conclusion: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads Adel Abdel Ghafar and Silvia Colombo EU-GCC Relations: The Path Forward

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Index

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189 196 201 205

207 209 209 210 212 214 215 216 218 218 219 221 222 223 223 229 232 234 236 237

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Notes on Contributors

Adel Abdel Ghafar is a Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and at the Brookings Doha Center, where he was previously director of research. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He specializes in political economy and his research interests include state-society relations, socio-economic development and foreign policy in the MENA region. He is the Author and Editor of several volumes and reports including : Egyptians in Revolt: The Political Economy of Labor and Student Mobilizations 1919–2011 (Routledge, 2017), A Stable Egypt for a Stable Region (European Parliament, 2018), The European Union and North Africa: Prospects and Challenges (Brookings Institution Press, 2019) and China and North Africa: Between Economics, Politics and Security (I.B. Tauris, 2021). He has a background in international banking and finance and has worked for a number of financial institutions including HSBC and Citigroup. Abdel Ghafar holds a doctorate in political science and international relations from the Australian National University. Hanaa Almoaibed is a Research Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, a Visiting Research Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. Her Ph.D. explored youth narratives and the role of structure and agency in young men and women’s education and career choices in Saudi Arabia, focusing on vocational education and training. She has worked in education and corporate social responsibility in Saudi Arabia, managing several xvii

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multistakeholder research projects related to youth, careers, and education, and building relationships between private and public sector entities. Almoaibed holds a Ph.D. in the Sociology of Education from University College London. Omar Al-Ubaydli is a Non-resident Fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington as well as the Director of Research at the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (Derasat). He is additionally an Affiliated Associate Professor of economics at George Mason University and an Affiliated Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. His research interests include political economy, experimental economics and the economics of the GCC countries. Al-Ubaydli previously served as a member of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Joint Advisory Board of Economists and a visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He regularly publishes his research in international peer-reviewed academic journals, and his mainstream media articles appear in Arabic and English-language newspapers and blogs such as AlHayat, Newsweek ME, Forbes Opinion and US News. Al-Ubaydli earned his B.A. in economics from the University of Cambridge, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. Cinzia Bianco is a Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Berlin, where she is working on political, security and economic developments in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf region and relations with Europe. Additionally, she is a Senior Analyst at Gulf State Analytics. Previously, Bianco was a research fellow for the European Commission’s project on EU-GCC relations ‘Sharaka’ between 2013 and 2014. She holds an M.A. degree in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King’s College London and a Ph.D. in Middle East Politics from the University of Exeter in the UK, where she worked on threat perceptions in the countries of the GCC after the 2011 Arab uprisings. Silvia Colombo is a Senior Fellow in the Mediterranean and Middle East programme at IAI. She is an expert on Middle Eastern politics and in this capacity she is working on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, transatlantic relations in the Mediterranean and domestic and regional politics in the Arab World. Among her research interests, there are also the relations between the European Union and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). She completed a traineeship at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London where she worked mainly on

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Syria and Iraq. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (Florence Branch) and a Master’s Degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She speaks Arabic fluently and has travelled extensively in the Middle Eastern region. Courtney Freer is an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Kuwait Program of the LSE Middle East Centre. Her work focuses on the domestic politics of the Gulf states, particularly the roles played by Islamism and tribalism. Her book Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies, based on her D.Phil. thesis at the University of Oxford and published by Oxford University Press in 2018, examines the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood groups in Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. She previously worked at the Brookings Doha Center and the US–Saudi Arabian Business Council. Courtney holds a B.A. from Princeton University in Near Eastern Studies and an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the George Washington University. Christian Koch is a Project Director with the Gulf Research Center Foundation where he leads the Tafahum Project on a Security Roadmap for West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula sponsored by the German Federal Foreign Office. He is also a member of the Bertelsmann Foundation Strategy Group on “The EU and Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia: Strategies for the EU Neighbourhood”. From 2018 to 2020, he was a Senior Advisor and Director of Research at the Bussola Institute in Brussels, Belgium. Prior, he served as Director of the Gulf Research Center Foundation, Research Program Leader on Gulf-Europe Relations at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai and as Head of Strategic Studies at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, Abu Dhabi. Dr. Koch’s work combines the analysis of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states on pertinent foreign and security issues, with a particular interest in GCC-EU relations. He is particularly interested in better understanding the dynamics driving regional security issues in the Gulf region and promoting aspects of cooperative security among regional and international actors. Dr. Koch is the editor of eight books; author of Politische Entwicklung in einem arabischen Golfstaat: Die Rolle von Interessengruppen im Emirat Kuwait, coauthor of “Establishing a Regional Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Gulf Region”, as well as

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numerous chapter contributions and journal articles. Dr. Koch received his PhD from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. Andrew Leber is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Government, Harvard University GSAS. His work focuses on the politics of policymaking in authoritarian regimes, the politics of natural resources and foreign policy analysis of the Arab Gulf monarchies. His research has been published in Mediterranean Politics , the British Journal of Middle East Studies , the Review of Middle East Studies , the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Arabian Humanities and the Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. He was previously a Visiting Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, and previously worked at the Brookings Doha Center. Sebastian Sons is a Researcher for the Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO). Prior to that, he served as an advisor for the Regional Programme “Cooperation with Arab Donors” (CAD) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. He holds a Ph.D. from the Humboldt University Berlin. His thesis deals with media discourses on labour migration from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. As a political analyst, he is consulted by German and international political institutions as well as by international journalists to provide expertise on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. He is the author of the book Built on Sand: Saudi Arabia – A problematic Ally (in German) in 2016. He studied Islamic Studies, History and Political Sciences in Berlin and Damascus. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a Baker Institute fellow for the Middle East. Working across the disciplines of political science, international relations and international political economy, his research examines the changing position of Persian Gulf states in the global order, as well as the emergence of longer-term, nonmilitary challenges to regional security. Previously, he worked as senior Gulf analyst at the Gulf Center for Strategic Studies between 2006 and 2008 and as co-director of the Kuwait Program on Development, Governance and Globalization in the Gulf States at the London School of Economics (LSE) from 2008 until 2013. Coates Ulrichsen has published extensively on the Gulf. His books include Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era (2011) and Qatar and the Arab Spring (2014), The Logistics and Politics of the British Campaigns in the Middle East, 1914–22 (2011), The First

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World War in the Middle East (2014), The Gulf States in International Political Economy (2015) and The United Arab Emirates: Power, Politics, and Policymaking (2016). Coates Ulrichsen’s articles have appeared in numerous academic journals, including Global Policy and the Journal of Arabian Studies, and he consults regularly on Gulf issues for Oxford Analytica and the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center. He also writes regularly for the Economist Intelligence Unit, Open Democracy and Foreign Policy, and authors a monthly column for Gulf Business News and Analysis. Coates Ulrichsen holds a doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge. Steven Wright is an Associate Professor of International Relations and an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research in the College Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. He previously served as an Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, in addition to the Head of the Department of International Affairs at Qatar University. His areas of research focus on international relations and the political economy of the Arab Gulf states, energy geopolitics, in addition to the US foreign policy towards the Gulf region. He has held research fellowships at the London School of Economics (LSE), Exeter University and also at the University of Durham. He received his undergraduate degree in Social and Political Science from the University of London, and his graduate degrees in International Relations from the University of Durham.

List of Figures

Tailoring a Local Approach: Extending EU Policy Objectives to Facilitate Technical and Vocational Education to Work Transitions in Saudi Arabia Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

TVTC training institutes by type Total number of students enrolled in TVET 2007–2017 (Source GaStat Annual Yearbooks) Number of students (aged 14+) enrolled in main relevant education levels (Source Education and Training Survey 2017, GaStat)

39 40

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EU-GCC Trade and Investments Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7

EU-GCC total trade in goods as a % of GDP (Source World Bank and OEC) Composition of primary EU exports to GCC (Source OEC) Contribution of Top Products to EU-GCC Merchandise Exports (Source OEC) Composition of primary GCC exports to the EU (Source OEC) Contribution of top products to EU-GCC merchandise exports (Source OEC) Inward FDI stocks in the GCC by origin (millions of dollars) (Source UNCTAD) Outward FDI stocks by the GCC by location (millions of dollars) (Source UNCTAD)

133 135 135 137 138 140 140 xxiii

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LIST OF FIGURES

Gulf Security Architecture and the Potential Role of Europe Fig. 1

Percentage of arms imports for each country coming from different suppliers. European numbers include the United Kingdom (Source Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Transfer Database, 2020)

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List of Tables

Domestic Economic Plans and Visions and Opportunities for Cooperation with Europe Table Table Table Table

1 2 3 4

Break Even Oil Price in the GCC states (in USD) Economic growth in the GCC states (% of GDP) GDP per capita in the GCC states (in USD) Official financial reserves (in billion USD)

81 85 85 86

Navigating the New Era: Energy and Environmental Considerations in EU-GCC Relations Table Table Table Table

1 2 3 4

Table 5 Table 6 Table 7

EU-27 imports of petroleum oil by trading partner 2019 EU-27 imports of natural gas by trading partner 2019 Total energy import dependency rate 1990−2018 Refined and crude oil exports from GCC states to EU-27 (2018) Percentage of total refined and crude oil exports destined for EU-27 by GCC collectively (2018) Percentage of total natural and petroleum oil exports destined for EU-27 by GCC collectively (2018) Percentage of total natural and petroleum oil exports destined for EU-27 by Qatar (2018)

112 113 114 116 116 117 117

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Introduction Adel Abdel Ghafar and Silvia Colombo

Europe has had diplomatic, economic and strategic relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since the latter was established in 1981. More than four decades later and despite the early promises, a host of domestic, regional, intra-European and international factors have relegated the GCC to the periphery of the European Union (EU) foreign

This chapter draws on the authors’ previously published policy briefing titled “EU-GCC Relations: The Path towards a New Relationship”, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Regional Programme Gulf States, Policy Report Number Two, March 2020. https://www.kas.de/documents/286298/8668222/200401+Policy+ Report+No+2+GCC-EU+Path+towards+a+New+Relationship.pdf/25e952787689-2ec2-0b14-e27197b49969?version=1.1&t=1585898593194. A. Abdel Ghafar (B) Brookings Foreign Policy and Brookings Doha Center, Doha, Qatar e-mail: [email protected] S. Colombo Istituto Affari Internazionali, Roma, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_1

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policy despite the centrality of the Gulf on the regional geopolitical chessboard. From the GCC’s side, its relationship with the EU has never been a priority, due to a lack of internal cohesion, prioritisation of relationships with the United States, bureaucratic inefficiencies and inadequate economic diversification. As for the EU, the rhetoric for closer cooperation with the GCC has not been matched by concrete steps, due to intra-EU disagreements and the predominance of bilateral relations. Now, more than ever, there is a need to reinvigorate EU-GCC relations. The US-led liberal international order is going through a fundamental change with implications for the EU, the Middle East and other international actors. The four years of the Trump presidency, China’s increased assertiveness and its engagement in the Middle East through its ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya, the rise of regional players through either military and security actions or diplomacy, and the breakdown of the Iran Nuclear Deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) provide increased impetus for the EU to further develop its ties with this strategic region. In an increasingly challenging international and regional environment, coupled by the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need for the EU to deepen its engagement with the GCC countries, in order to— among other things—facilitate the emergence of a regional mechanism to ease tensions and foster sustainable development in the Gulf region and the broader Middle East. In this regard, domestic development initiatives in the GCC countries under the name of ‘Visions’ could provide the EU with increased trade opportunities and the ability to widen the scope of its economic engagement with the region. In light of population growth and the developmental needs of the GCC countries, there are opportunities to increase bilateral trade in goods and services with each country in the GCC taking their different priorities and needs into account. Finally, there are opportunities to further develop cultural and peopleto-people ties between the EU and the GCC. Populations on both sides still have a limited understanding and awareness of each other’s history, customs and daily lives. Perceptions are often rooted in misconceptions and, in the European case, are dominated by stereotypes of the Middle East as a source of irregular migration and religious extremism. On the GCC side, Europe is often viewed as part of the ‘West’ and little thought is given to the differences between Europe and the United States or among European countries.

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Overall, how can the EU deepen its engagement with the GCC countries? What sectors hold the greatest potential for engagement at the multilateral level? What are the prospects and challenges for increased cooperation against the backdrop of increasingly volatile regional and international orders? How can the EU balance its relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates? In light of the existing divisions within the GCC, how can the EU balance its bilateral relationships with the different GCC countries? How can the EU deepen its cultural and societal engagement with the governments and peoples of the GCC? These were some of the questions that were discussed in October 2019 at a workshop convened by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and the editors of this volume. The two-day expert roundtable brought together policy makers, academics, think tank representatives, civil society actors and private sector professionals from Europe and the Gulf. The purpose of the roundtable was to discuss the prospects and challenges for EU– GCC relations over the next decade and develop policy options for how the EU can deepen its engagement with the Gulf region. This book is the result of the further reflection carried out by the editors and a host of key experts, some of whom participated in the Brussels workshop, on the various aspects of the relationship and its path forward. This introductory chapter to the volume is divided into two parts. The first part takes stock of past relations and dwells on the approaches that did not work and why. It argues that one of the main problems of the multilateral framework of EU-GCC relations is the fact that it has remained stuck, while geopolitical and domestic realities in the Middle East and in the Gulf more specifically have evolved dramatically. The second part provides concise summaries of the nine chapters that were contributed by the experts.

The Unfulfilled Potential of EU-GCC Multilateral Relations and Shifting Geopolitical and Domestic Realities In the aftermath of the first Gulf War between Iran and Iraq (1980– 1988), the countries of the Arabian Peninsula decided to initiate a move towards regional integration with a view to dealing with potential security threats. After the GCC’s creation on 25 May 1981, plans were laid out to

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enhance regional integration in a way similar to that of the EU, with the stated goals of creating a customs union and adopting a single currency by 2010.1 Despite these ambitious plans, progress has been slow and uneven for a number of reasons, including bureaucratic and administrative inefficiencies. Furthermore, as hydrocarbon producers, the GCC countries have traditionally had a similar economic structure, which has restricted trade promotion and integration among them. In addition, geopolitical factors also help explain why the GCC countries have failed to behave as a united bloc. These include old rivalries and a degree of competition among the ruling families or the smaller states’ fear that any form of Gulf integration would mean sacrificing their sovereignty to Saudi Arabia’s pre-eminence. This situation of poor regional integration has created the conditions for intense external bilateral relations based on historical and colonial ties. EU member states have been the main recipients of these relations, in spite of the fact that the GCC countries have traditionally preferred the United States as their strategic partner on the military-security front. At a multilateral level, the most important initiative structuring relations between the EU and the GCC was the Cooperation Agreement with the European Economic Community (EEC) concluded in 1988 and entered into force in 1989. This document as well as the subsequent Joint Action Programme for 2010–2013 failed to put the relationship on a good track as they have simply represented detailed but scarcely operational lists of areas of cooperation ranging from trade and energy to culture, higher education and scientific research. Overall, during the first two decades of the EU-GCC multilateral cooperation, expectations were largely deceived, driving a wedge between the two sides. Meanwhile, important domestic as well as geopolitical changes have been ongoing in the broader Middle Eastern region since the late 1980s while the EU-GCC cooperation framework has remained stuck. While the EU has cultivated fairly structured and comprehensive relations with the western part of the Arab world (i.e., the Mediterranean) since the 1990s and throughout the years, it has not been equally forthcoming when it comes to the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. We can even speak of an imaginary line between, on the one hand, the southern and eastern 1 Matteo Legrenzi, The GCC and the International Relations of the Gulf: Diplomacy, Security and Economic Coordination in a Changing Middle East (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011).

INTRODUCTION

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Mediterranean, that is the EU’s strategic neighbourhood, and, on the other hand, the GCC countries. Most recently, this line has started to be blurred under the weight of changing geopolitical realities. Domestic political and social unrest, heightened regional competition and tensions and even—at times—the risk of conflict spilling over the confines of the GCC or the Gulf region as a whole have created new conditions to be reckoned with when thinking of how to revamp EU-GCC relations in the context of a Middle East in turmoil. Approaching the end of the first decade of the 2000s, both the global financial and economic crisis, as well as the Arab uprisings, provided new constraints and opportunities to the relationship between the EU and the GCC. These contingent factors have had important repercussions at the domestic and regional levels, spurring transformations in both the EU and the GCC countries. On the one hand, a sort of geopolitical fatigue vis-à-vis the Middle East has appeared among European policy makers and public opinions in the wake of the growing intractability of regional conflicts, such as in Syria, Yemen and Libya, and the emergence of nationalist-populist forces in some of the member states voicing antiEU and anti-Muslim stances. On the other, the GCC countries have been increasingly invested by the spill-overs of the Arab uprisings in their own peculiar way. Both opportunities and risks have emerged from the prevailing demographic trends in the GCC countries with swathes of young people entering the job market every year and often finding inadequate jobs or not possessing the relevant skills to compete with expats for key posts. This demographic and educational challenge also bears larger economic and sociopolitical implications given the need to re-negotiate the social contract on new bases following the introduction of previously non-existing taxes, on the one hand, or the partial relaxation of some cultural and social norms, on the other, particularly in favour of the youth and of women. The coming together of these transformations has created after 2015 the conditions for a further dilution of the EU-GCC multilateral cooperation and its replacement with purely bilateral and transactional, and at times conflicting, relations. Awakening to the manifestation of jihadi terrorism on its own soil and to the direct impact of human displacement in and from the Middle East, the EU has retrenched in itself and relegated its foreign and security policy to migration cooperation with and humanitarian assistance to the countries of the Middle East. Multilateral cooperation with the GCC countries has been further downgraded

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to a second-tier priority as many competencies and policies have been re-nationalised in the context of the severe crisis suffered by the EU integration process. This situation has been made even more acute by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its multi-faceted impact on EU foreign policy’s capabilities and preparedness. This is the low point from which EU-GCC engagement needs to be uplifted and rethought taking new regional and international realities into account.

Structure of the Book The common thread linking the chapters in this volume is the recognition that EU-GCC relations have yet to reach their full potential. Both parties share a number of common interests, including trade, energy, climate change, security and cultural cooperation. However, the multilateral cooperation framework remains limited, with most engagement taking place bilaterally, between individual European and GCC countries. Thus, the need arises to re-assess the potential and prospects for the EU’s engagement with GCC countries based on the recalibration and reconciliation of both parties’ national and regional interests. This re-assessment must acknowledge that changing regional and international dynamics are having a strong impact not only on the domestic outlooks and external projections of GCC countries, but also on how the EU and its member states perceive the importance of their relationships with the GCC. Taking a thematic approach, each of the three sections of the volume focuses on a dimension of the relationship, its current status and its path forward. The first section deals with socio-political issues. It comprises three chapters dealing with the structural constraints in EU-GCC relations, the role of technical and vocational education and training in offering skills to young people to enter the labour market, and the place of cultural and religious diplomacy as soft-power tools in EU-GCC relations. The first chapter, written by Silvia Colombo, argues that the structural constraints that have impinged on the possibility of developing an effective and sustainable region-to-region cooperation framework have to do with issues related to the prevailing bilateralism in EU-GCC cooperation (the format), the strong bias in favour of economic issues (the content) and the almost complete neglect of people-to-people mutual knowledge and exchanges (the actors). Nevertheless, the fact that they are structural constraints does not necessarily mean that they cannot be changed or gradually overcome. Hence, this chapter puts forth some concrete policy

INTRODUCTION

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recommendations to anchor EU-GCC relations on firmer bases in the future. Turning to the second chapter, authored by Hanaa Almoaibed, it examines the changing nature of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programmes across the GCC countries with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia, offering recommendations for further EU cooperation in TVET development in the GCC. Finally, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen posits in his chapter that rising oil prices and subsequent capital accumulation in the 2000s allowed GCC states, namely Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, to forge new cultural and religious soft-power means separate from energy relations with regional blocs and countries across the globe, including the European Union and its member states. The author argues that bilateral diplomatic ties will continue to supersede bloc-to-bloc efforts of cultural and religious diffusion between the EU and GCC. In addition to socio-political issues, the book also deals with the main components of EU-GCC economic cooperation, namely the GCC countries’ development visions and opportunities for cooperation with Europe, the prevailing trends in EU-GCC trade and investments, and the need to take energy and environmental considerations into account in multilateral EU-GCC relations. With reference to the GCC countries’ economic diversification and development plans, Cinzia Bianco and Sebastian Sons argue in their chapter that the EU and its member states can play a substantial role in fostering development and economic goals, particularly in renewable energy, tourism, sports, entertainment, technology and logistic sectors. Additionally, development and foreign aid may prove a potential site for further EU-GCC cooperation, despite several challenging factors including distrust between GCC and EU states and conflicting views on human rights. Omar Al-Ubaydli addresses the current state of EU-GCC trade and investment relations, as well as their likely future trajectory. From the EU perspective, persisting economic challenges following the 2008 global financial crisis, the rise of populism and subsequent economic protectionist strategies, growing climate change concerns and the economic and political aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic have had a negative impact on the possibility of deepened economic relations with the GCC. Similarly in the Gulf, diversification slowdown in response to the Arab Spring, falling oil prices and the ongoing Qatar crisis, as well as the impact of COVID-19, have left leaders unsure of the future of EU-GCC

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economic relationships. Finally, the last chapter in this section, written by Steven Wright, investigates how relations between the EU and GCC have changed over time in light of the EU’s energy supply strategy and its environmental concerns and goals. In light of the steps forward and of the constraints, Wright recommends that the GCC countries engage by sharing their expertise pertaining to cleaner use of fossil fuels and renewable technologies with EU member states to help make these goals reality. Finally, it is not possible not to dwell onto the political and security drivers of EU-GCC relations given the level of tensions and conflicts in the Gulf region and their spill-over effects for Europe. The chapters in this section include a focus on EU-GCC parliamentary relations, an analysis of the EU’s response to the intra-GCC crisis and, finally, a discussion of the potential role for the EU to facilitate the emergence of a regional security architecture. The first chapter in this section is authored by Courtney Freer where she analyses the structure and nature of EU-GCC legislative relations from 2014 to 2019, examining their impact on policy and interregional affairs. Freer highlights how intra-legislative cooperation with the European Parliament differs across countries and thus tailored measures need to be taken to enhance it given the country-specific nature of relations. The topic of the 2017 Gulf crisis is addressed in the chapter written by Christian Koch. The author demonstrates that the reactionary, rather than proactive, nature of the EU’s actions and influence in the region has increased in the wake of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt’s decision to cut ties with Qatar in June of 2017. Finally, as regional tensions continue to rise and external actors struggle to maintain a functioning security architecture in the Gulf, Adel Abdel Ghafar and Andrew Leber analyse the possibility and potential of European involvement in facilitating the emergence of a new Gulf security architecture. In this regard, they propose three levels of European engagement: (i) leveraging existing bilateral relations to achieve some de-escalation and deterrence, (ii) designing a new nuclear deal with Iran and (iii) launching a homegrown Gulf security community with the support of the EU and its member states.

Overcoming Structural Constraints in EU-GCC Relations: The Format, the Content and the Actors Silvia Colombo

The relations between the European Union (EU) and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have suffered from a number of constraints, some of which are structural in nature while others are linked to contingent factors. Leaving aside the contingent issues that are the object of the following chapters in this volume, this contribution outlines and assesses the structural constraints that have shaped EU-GCC relations over the course of the years and decades and have impinged on their success. In this regard, three aspects can be mentioned that have to do with the format, the content and the actors of EU-GCC relations. First, concerning the format, the attempt to foster the EU-GCC multilateral framework has stumbled over the resilience and in certain cases predominance of bilateral ties (i.e., the relations between the individual EU member states and each GCC country). Second, content-wise, trade and economic cooperation, with particular emphasis on energy security and the removal of barriers, have trumpeted the political, security and social

S. Colombo (B) Istituto Affari Internazionali, Roma, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_2

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dimensions of the cooperation. While this approach could have made sense in the initial stages of the multilateral cooperation and in view of the EU’s own priorities and history of regional integration, it has later on demonstrated its limitations particularly in light of the changing geopolitical context in the Gulf and the broader Middle Eastern region, and of the transformations in the global balance of power. Third, on the actors involved, institutional relations (e.g. government to government, parliament to parliament, business to business)—mostly having a transactional nature—have largely prevailed over relations built on the basis of peopleto-people contacts. This has meant that the engagement between the two parties has often lacked the mutual deep knowledge that stems from—for example—personal and cultural connections. This has resulted in a significant communication gap between the two sides and a limited degree of familiarity and interaction breeding misperceptions and stereotypes. These factors, albeit often ignored in the mainstream scholarly literature on EU-GCC relations,1 have significantly impinged on the possibility of developing an effective and sustainable region-to-region cooperation framework. It is important to discuss these challenges and constraints by taking into account the specific circumstances the EU and its member states, on the one hand, and the GCC countries, on the other, have found themselves in, which have evolved substantially since the inception of EU-GCC structured multilateral relations. By adopting the lens of “principled pragmatism” that constitutes the backbone of the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS), this chapter dwells on these structural constraints— multilateral vs. bilateral, economic cooperation vs. other issue areas and institutional vs. people-to-people relations—in EU-GCC relations with a view to underscoring potential rooms for concrete improvement.2 In particular, it will focus on the most recent period after outlining the contextual background. The preliminary conclusion points to the fact that in the current stage and in the future multilateral relations can only offer the institutional setting to frame more content-oriented, bilateral relations at different levels (people-to-people, education, culture, security, energy, 1 See, for example, Henner Fürtig, “GCC—EU Political Cooperation: Myth or Reality?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 1 (2004): 25–39 and Gerd Nonneman, “EU-GCC Relations: Dynamics, Patterns and Perspectives,” The International Spectator 41, no. 3 (2006): 59–74. 2 On the EU Global Strategy, see https://eeas.europa.eu/topics/eu-global-strategy_en.

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environmental sustainability) if EU-GCC cooperation is to be overhauled and set on new firmer bases, also taking into account changing regional and global realities and opportunities.

EU-GCC Relations: Historical Depth and Stock Taking The Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf, colloquially known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), was founded in 1981 as a regional integration organisation by its six member states—the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The GCC and the EU are two important global actors with an enormous potential for cooperation in a number of sectors. Just to mention trade and economic relations, the GCC is the EU’s fifth largest export market and the EU is the grouping’s biggest trading partner.3 Their mutual relations are multifaceted and complex and are currently at an all-time low and need to be revamped and rebuilt on a new, more solid foundation. Historically, they are anchored in the 1988 Cooperation Agreement that put in place a region-to-region high-level framework of dialogue on a whole range of issues. Nevertheless, intense bilateral relations based on historical and colonial ties predated the multilateral agreement. Official contacts between the two sides took off in 1983 in the wake of the creation of the GCC.4 The Cooperation Agreement, which entered into force in 1989, represents a scarcely detailed document providing for the institutional framework to pursue cooperation in a number of fields of interest to both parties. At the onset, the main goal was to improve economic relations between the two regions, intensify trade and investment exchanges, strengthen interregional interdependence and initiate loose political dialogue. Further areas of cooperation included the fields of energy, agriculture, fisheries, investment, technology, environment, and media and communication. The agreement also intended “to encourage GCC regional integration, contribute to strengthening 3 For more information on EU-GCC trade relations, see https://ec.europa.eu/trade/ policy/countries-and-regions/regions/gulf-region/. 4 Matteo Legrenzi, The GCC and the International Relations of the Gulf. Diplomacy, Security and Economic Coordination in a Changing Middle East (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011).

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stability in a region of strategic importance to Europe, secure European energy supplies and strengthen the process of economic development and diversification of the GCC economies”.5 This comprehensive list of ambitious goals notwithstanding, EU-GCC relations have been largely confined to trade and economic issues for a number of years. Other issues that have occupied the centre stage in EU-GCC multilateral relations have been energy security and financial cooperation. On the one hand, energy relations have been one of the main drivers of EU-GCC relations from the beginning for three main reasons. Firstly, the European countries have articulated the need to gain access to energy resources to satisfy their growing internal demand and diversify their energy partners away from the over-dependence on Russian gas. Secondly, the GCC countries have felt the pressure to develop their technological endowment and their know-how in dealing with the increasingly important energy transitions processes and climatechange-related issues.6 And thirdly, specific global dynamics connected to environmental protection and de-pollution have acquired particular salience in the policy debate. These motivations notwithstanding and in spite of the marked complementarities existing in this field EU-GCC energy cooperation has not flourished.7 On the other hand, financial relations and in particular the role of the GCC Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) and of Gulf investments in bringing the two blocs closer to one another have been an important driver in the relations, as further specified below.8 Although EU-GCC relations may look asymmetrical on these issues in some respects, with the EU and its member states vying with other actors such as China and India for a special relationship with the GCC countries to cope with their financial and economic needs, the potential for gains on both sides has been clear. However, this has not translated into a set of truly strategic

5 Silvia Colombo, ed., Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads (Rome: Nuova Cultura, 2014). 6 Abdulaziz Al-Shalabi, Nicolas Cottret, and Emanuela Menichetti, “EU-GCC Cooper-

ation on Energy. Technical Report,” Sharaka Research Paper 3, 2013, https://www.iai. it/sites/default/files/Sharaka_RP_03.pdf. 7 See the chapter by Steven Wright on EU-GCC energy cooperation in this volume. 8 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What

Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Sharaka Research Paper 5, 2013, https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/Sharaka_RP_05.pdf.

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relations and with the passing of time the two regions have grown increasingly apart, dampening their dialogue and cooperation to the point of turning it into a formal and fruitless exercise. The example of the failed EU-GCC Free-Trade Area (FTA), one of the main goals of the Cooperation Agreement, speaks volume about this state of affairs. After the initial enthusiasm for the potentially positive repercussions on cooperation on political and security issues stemming from the FTA, negotiations gradually lost steam and were unilaterally interrupted by the GCC at the end of 2008, ultimately taking the whole EU-GCC framework hostage for a number of years. The failed process to establish the FTA is illustrative of some of the trends that have characterised EU-GCC relations at large in the past. Negotiations to reach the FTA have gone through many ups and downs and the scope and mandate often changed to accommodate new priorities by one or both sides.9 The basic idea for the agreement was to lay the groundwork for more robust EU-GCC relations in a number of fields—including common rules and regulations for intellectual property rights, competition, dispute settlement and rules of origin—through the gradual, reciprocal and region-to-region liberalisation of trade in goods and services. Negotiation to launch the FTA initiated in 1990, immediately after the signing of the Cooperation Agreement, thus signalling the strategic importance attributed to this issue as a pillar to further structure EU-GCC multilateral relations. However, the prospects of a proper region-to-region FTA only became realistic in 2003 when the GCC became a Customs Union. The pace of negotiations accelerated in 2007, leading to clearly manifested expectations that a conclusion could be reached in 2008. These expectations were shattered by the GCC countries’ feeling that too many concessions had been made on their side with no reward coming from the European side, thus prompting their decision to suspend the FTA talks unilaterally. This was a huge blow to the overall EU-GCC cooperation framework and to the prospects of moving forward to attain a deeper strategic dialogue. It is no surprise, then, that in the following years relations between the two regions have remained confined to the purely procedural level with minimum institutional exchanges in the form of the

9 Dean A. DeRosa and David Kernohan, “Measuring the Economic Impact of an EUGCC Free Trade Agreement,” CEPS Working Documents, No. 206, 2004, https://www. ceps.eu/ceps-publications/measuring-economic-impact-eu-gcc-free-trade-agreement/.

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yearly Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting, a series of communiqués and some expert meetings. The next step in multilateral EU-GCC relations came in 2010 when the EU and the GCC agreed on a Joint Action Programme for 20102013 for the implementation of the Cooperation Agreement of 1988.10 While the new document stemmed from the need to unlock the potential of the multilateral relationship, the fact that it was framed once again as a detailed but scarcely operational list of areas of cooperation ranging from trade to energy, from culture to higher education did not lead to the attainment of the final goal. On the contrary, this poorly thought document has not succeeded in mustering the required political will and capital on both sides to overcome the prevailing sense of fatigue and mistrust.11 As already pointed out in other analyses, after more than 20 years since the 1988 EU-GCC Cooperation Agreement and many rounds of meetings, cooperation between the two sides has remained dismally limited and has not lived up to the potential and declaratory aspirations of both sides.12 Amidst growing mistrust and lack of confidence, particularly regarding the willingness and the ability of the EU to pursue a sincere, non-preconditioned dialogue with the GCC to increase mutual cooperation to the benefit of both parties, EU-GCC relations have stalled and entered a frozen mode in 2013–2014 and have not been revitalised ever since. A number of factors can be mentioned to explain such a poor record to date in EU-GCC relations by pointing to some of the challenges and obstacles that have to be overcome. The next section will discuss the structural constraints that, embedded into EU-GCC relations since the beginning, have represented a burden to the multilateral cooperation between the two blocs.

10 Joint Action Programme for Implementation of the GCC-EU Cooperation Agree-

ment of 1988, 2010–2013, https://eeas.europa.eu/gulf_cooperation/docs/joint_action_ programme_en.pdf. 11 Christian Koch, “Constructing a Viable EU–GCC Partnership,” LSE Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, 2014, https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55282/1/Constructing-a-viable-U-GCC-relationship.pdf. 12 Silvia Colombo, ed., (2014), op. cit., 20–22.

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Unpacking Structural Constraints in EU-GCC Relations Multilateral vs. Bilateral Cooperation Among the reasons for the disappointing performance and ongoing difficulties in EU-GCC relations, it is important to mention that the format of the cooperation has been strongly biased in favour of bilateralism. EU-GCC multilateral relations have suffered from the resilience and even sharpening of bilateral relations between individual European member states and the GCC countries taken one by one. Institutional deficiencies and poor integration inside the GCC as a regional organisation are partially responsible for this situation. If viewed through the lenses of both mainstream and alternative regionalism approaches, the GCC remains an incomplete regional endeavour. The mainstream literature that flourished during the 1970s–1980s defines regionalism as a policy (a project) whereby states cooperate and coordinate their strategies within a given region.13 In this context, regionalism is often used interchangeably with “regional cooperation” or “regional integration”. Most analyses envisage a step-by-step approach that leads to the attainment of regional integration as the final goal; overall, regionalism is understood and presented as a positive thing, a force for good that contributes to promoting “economic, political and security cooperation, consolidate state-building and democratisation, check heavy-handed behaviours by strong states, generate and lock in norms and values, increase transparency, make states more accountable”.14 One example of this step-bystep approach is the one adopted by Bela Balassa, which outlines the different stages to achieve economic integration, a key component of regional integration/regionalism.15 These stages are preferential trading

13 Examples of the mainstream literature on regionalism applied to the Middle East include Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell, Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order (Oxford University Press, 1996) and Melani Cammett, “Defensive Integration and Late Developers: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab Maghreb Union,” Global Governance 5 (1999): 379–402. 14 Louise Fawcett, “Regionalism and the Changing International Order in Central Eurasia,” International Affairs 80, no. 3 (2004): 429. 15 Bela Balassa, The Theory of Economic Integration (Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, 1961).

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area; free trade area; customs union; single market; economic and monetary union; and complete economic integration. If measured according to these benchmarks, it is clear that even on the economic and financial fronts, in which most of the progress was made between the 1990s and the 2000s, GCC integration remains incomplete. While the GCC countries ultimately became a customs union in 2003 after a lengthy and painful process, no major steps towards achieving the following goals of economic integration have been taken. In March 2010, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain set up a forerunner to the Gulf central bank, a “monetary council”, but since then the institution has kept a low profile because of the lack of agreement internally.16 Most recently, as part of the financial measures introduced by some members to alleviate the pressure over their public finances, the GCC organisation has introduced a treaty laying out the framework of a Value Added Tax (VAT) system among the six member states. This treaty is however not binding and major discrepancies continue to exist among the fiscal regimes of the different members, some of which have postponed the introduction of a national VAT to the coming years fearing that this would spur social protests. It is likely that the emergency measures introduced as a result of the COVID19 pandemic will impose significant readjustments both onto the national and the regional legislation related to the VAT and other taxes.17 Taking the point of view of the alternative approaches to regionalism, exemplified by the work of Silvia Ferabolli among others, it is clear that the GCC does not emerge unscathed either.18 The alternative literature on regionalism offers three important contributions to the scholarly debate about regional organisations and regional integration. First, it challenges the automatic synonymy between regionalism and regional cooperation, acknowledging the fact that regionalism includes both cooperative and conflictual regional dynamics. Second, it discards

16 “Four Central Banks Begin Official GCC Monetary Union Talks,” The National, March 30, 2010, https://www.thenational.ae/business/four-central-banks-begin-officialgcc-monetary-union-talks-1.486007 and Emilie J. Rutledge, Monetary Union in the Gulf. Prospects for a Single Currency in the Arabian Peninsula (Routledge, 2009). 17 “VAT in the Gulf: Surprise Move as Saudi Arabia Increases Its VAT Rate,” Taxamo, https://blog.taxamo.com/insights/gcc-vat-update2. 18 Silvia Ferabolli, Arab Regionalism: A Post-Structural Perspective (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics, 2015).

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the idea that all region-making processes are heading to the same endpoint, i.e., regional integration. Third, and very much related to this, it questions and refuses the Eurocentric view according to which the European experiment, and the EU as its final result, sets the parameters by which other region-making processes should be measured. These important specifications notwithstanding, it is widely assumed that the GCC has not been able to provide an encompassing and effective model of dealing with regional affairs, a parameter that goes beyond the mere evaluation of the GCC as an institution devoted to advance the common goals of its members. The decision-making processes and the policies adopted on strategic issues such as foreign and security policy, arguably at the core of the GCC countries’ cooperation and integration path since its onset, are still firmly in the hands of the individual members rather than under the responsibility of the multilateral GCC framework. Not only does this trend make the GCC a rather loose and ineffective regional organisation on a number of fronts, including foreign and security policy, but it is also reflected in the contrasts and rivalries that have emerged among the six GCC countries over the years. For example, back in 2011 Saudi Arabia proposed to step the multilateral cooperation within the GCC up by tightening economic, political and military coordination in a move meant to counterbalance Iranian influence in the region. This proposal was met with fierce opposition and spikes in popular mobilisation in some other GCC countries, killing its prospects from the very beginning and further endangering any future move to any closer union modelled on the EU example.19 Subsequently, the emergence of the internal rift between the Saudi-led bloc, on the one hand, and Qatar, on the other, is yet another evidence of these contrasts within the GCC. The major motivations of the Qatar boycott have to do with Qatar’s foreign policy inclinations, starting with its support of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated movements and parties and ending with Doha’s ambiguous relationship to Tehran.20 The structural constraints besetting EU-GCC relations cannot be blamed on the Gulf partners alone as “it takes two to tango”. At the

19 Andrew Hammond, “Analysis: Saudi Gulf Union Plan Stumbles as Wary Leaders Seek Detail,” Reuters, May 17, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-union/ analysis-saudi-gulf-union-plan-stumbles-as-wary-leaders-seek-detail-idUSBRE84G0WN20 120517. 20 See the chapter by Christian Koch in this volume for further details on the intra-GCC

rift.

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European level, EU member states have often developed their independent national foreign policies with little attention to the EU framework and priorities, thus retaining as much freedom of manoeuvre as possible in terms of their bilateral relations with the GCC countries. Conscious about their stronger leverage over the GCC capitals compared to the one enjoyed by Brussels, the EU member states, in particular the biggest ones (e.g. France, Germany, the United Kingdom, but also Italy and Spain), have relentlessly tried to cultivate privileged relationships with individual GCC countries.21 Those European countries that have had extensive historical links to the Arabian Peninsula, such as the United Kingdom, had much to lose and little to gain from championing a common European policy towards the region. From the point of view of London, Paris, Rome or Berlin, there is much to be gained from pursuing an independent foreign policy, often in competition with each other, as a means to attain concrete interests and goals, be they in terms of energy-related deals, the selling of lucrative military equipment, investments in the material or ideational capital of that European country (e.g. fashion or art), or cultural and educational agreements leveraging the GCC countries’ soft power. In some respects, this reflects the fierce intra-European competition for GCC trade and investments (see below for further details) and an attempt to align with the GCC countries selectively to fill the perceived vacuum left by the United States. This has translated into a certain degree of unease on the part of some member states with the way in which the European Commission (EC) and the European External Action Service (EEAS) have gradually sought—albeit with limited results—to fashion a leading role for themselves in EU-GCC relations. The lack of a shared political strategy has created significant confusion among the GCC leaders, who struggle to understand the multi-layered, hyper-institutionalised ways in which EU common institutions function and policies are designed and implemented, thus reducing the EU’s leverage.22 Through their decisions

21 Abdullah Baabood and Geoffrey Edwards, “Reinforcing Ambivalence: The Interaction of Gulf States and the European Union,” European Foreign Affairs Review 12, no. 4 (2007): 548–550. 22 Cinzia Bianco, “A Gulf Apart: How Europe Can Gain Influence with the Gulf Cooperation Council,” Policy Brief, European Council on Foreign Relations, 2020, https://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/a_gulf_apart_how_europe_can_gain_i nfluence_with_gulf_cooperation_council.

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and policies, the member states have also signalled to the GCC countries that it is not worth taking the EU institutions seriously. This applies, for example, to the ways in which the lack of democracy on the domestic front, the disrespect for human rights and the conduct of aggressive foreign policies by some of the GCC countries have more often than not been severely criticised by the EU institutions in their declarations and assessments. At the same time, however, these behaviours have not prevented the GCC countries’ engagement with the EU member states, most of which have systematically preferred to brush those thorny issues under the carpet not to endanger their bilateral, lucrative relationship. Having mentioned the EU institutions, and in particular the EC and the EEAS, it is important to recall here that the unsatisfactory development of the multilateral EU-GCC relationship has also been caused by the structural deficiencies of the common European foreign and security policy framework, going much beyond the specific EU-GCC relations patterns. Before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the rotating EU presidency played a significant role in advancing or hindering EU-GCC relations.23 With the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, EU-GCC relations have been placed under the competences of the EEAS. In this context, some of the limitations besetting the EEAS in terms of its autonomy and effectiveness in pursuing a veritable common foreign and security policy have taken a toll on the EU-GCC multilateral framework. After more than ten years since this important addition to the EU institutional set-up, it appears that its ability to deliver has remained hostage of both supranational (the power of the EC) and intergovernmental (the national competencies of the member states) pressures, with little wiggle room to develop its actions and policies beyond the minimum common denominator declarations on the need to devise and implement “common solutions” to “common challenges”. It’s the Economy, Stupid! Another structural constraint explaining the disappointing progress in EU-GCC relations pertains to the existing tensions between economic

23 Christian Koch, “Exploring Opportunities in the EU-GCC Relationship,” Policy Brief, Al Jisr Project, 2009, https://www.aljisr.ae/?q=node/33.

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and political goals and strategies.24 The main argument is that economic issues, and in particular the strong emphasis on the FTA, have interfered with political and governance issues, while neither track of the cooperation has actually reached the desired results.25 Although a certain mismatch between political and economic goals is the normal in any foreign relations, the specific geopolitical features of the Gulf region and the afore-mentioned challenges to forge a truly common European foreign and security policy towards the region have made these tensions especially difficult to reconcile. A certain dose of lack of flexibility on economic policies has represented an obstacle to political objectives, while short-term thinking on strategic challenges, including conflict management and resolution, energy and maritime security, non-proliferation and human security, has failed to advance economic cooperation. While the GCC countries have become increasingly crucial players in the geopolitics and security of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the EU has continued to view them primarily through an economic lens. This economy-focused framework of engagement with the GCC countries has been conducive to major investments and export deals, but it has also undermined European influence in the broader region. On the economic side, as already mentioned, the piecemeal integration of the GCC economies has hindered the cooperation and coordination with the EU on economic matters, as the EU has tended to see the completion of the GCC economic integration process, for example through the introduction of a common VAT, as a necessary pre-condition for stronger economic region-to-region engagement. On the other side, the GCC countries have often blamed the EU for its scarce support to the integration of the GCC economies into the global markets and value chains. Fearing too strong a competition at the international level, EU governments have blocked duty-free access for petrochemicals from the Gulf region during the years of the oil bonanza. This was mainly the result of intense lobbying on the part of the Association of Petroleum Producers in Europe actively mobilising against trade liberalisation, which has bred mistrust and ultimately damaged the possibility of developing a

24 This section draws on Silvia Colombo, ed. (2014), op. cit., 22–26. 25 Richard Youngs, “Impasse in Euro-Gulf Relations,” Working Paper, Al Jisr Project,

2009, https://www.aljisr.ae/?q=node/33.

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more robust strategic relationship at 360 degrees.26 The GCC countries as a bloc have never hidden the fact that they saw the signing of the FTA and the attainment of a satisfactory level of trade and economic cooperation as facilitating conditions for deepened political cooperation. This aspiration has systematically been turned down by the EU, which has dealt with the GCC countries, in particular with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, merely as energy suppliers rather than as important geostrategic actors in the broader Middle Eastern region, in spite of some noticeable changes at the declaratory level after the Arab uprisings. At the political level, the EU has had little to propose to or to obtain from the GCC. As pointed out elsewhere, an invisible but clearly demarcated separation line has always existed between North Africa and the Levant, on the one hand, and the Gulf region, on the other, as far as EU policies and cooperation patterns are concerned.27 North Africa and the Levant have been systematically targeted by the EU external policies under the umbrella of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (also known as the Barcelona Process) launched in 1995, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) of 2004 and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) of 2008—just to mention the key cooperation frameworks Brussels has resorted to in the past 25 years to engage with a significant portion of the MENA. This portion excluded the GCC countries, which were regarded as qualitatively different from the rest of the Arab partners along all key economic, societal and political dimensions. This exclusion has represented a key structural obstacle on the part of the EU to initiate political dialogue with the GCC region on a number of key strategic issues. From a socio-political perspective, any attempt by the EU to promote governance reforms or to advocate for the respect of human rights has been regarded as an unwarranted interference with the domestic development of these countries. Top GCC officials have often lamented the attempt by the EU

26 Richard Youngs (2009), op. cit., p. 2. 27 Silvia Colombo, “The Gulf and the EU: Partners or Competitors,” in The Neighbours

of the European Union’s Neighbours. Diplomatic and Geopolitical Dimensions Beyond the European Neighbourhood Policy, ed. Sieglinde Gstöhl and Erwan Lannon (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2014), 123–144.

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to include human rights issues into the FTA negotiations.28 The rejection by the GCC countries to abide by EU “conditionality” on human rights—a standard instrument to pursue EU foreign policy goals—on the grounds that these issues have nothing to do with economic cooperation and dialogue has dampened the prospects for achieving the FTA and with it progress in EU-GCC relations at large. Gulf security has long remained outside the remit of the EU-GCC framework and any cooperation on matters related to it has been limited to political declarations or to bilateral arrangements between the individual members of each group. In light of the importance of security preoccupations in framing the GCC countries’ external engagement, the main obstacle to cooperation with the EU in this domain has been once again the lack of EU initiative and unified action on matters such as conflict de-escalation, non-proliferation and maritime security, in addition to the GCC countries’ heavy dependence on the United States for security and defence. In spite of the dwindling fortunes of security cooperation between the GCC countries and the United States amidst growing regional geopolitical complexity, relations with the EU cannot yet be seen as an alternative to the central role played by Washington in the region, particularly in light of the strengthening of US-Saudi Arabia and US-UAE relations under President Donald Trump.29 Furthermore, faced with increased intra-GCC competition, the EU and its member states have limited their policy of engagement with the region, focusing on maintaining channels of communication with all sides while advocating restraint and diplomacy. For example, in view of their significant economic relations with all the GCC countries, the EU member states have resisted intense pressure to pick sides in the intra-GCC crisis, which has led to some economic and financial losses for European businesses operating across borders in the GCC region. Most recently, some important steps 28 M. Anaam Hashmi, Fahad Al-Eatani, and Fareed Shaikh, “Is There a Need For a Free Trade Agreement Between the European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council?” International Business & Economics Research Journal 13, no. 1 (2014), https://www. researchgate.net/publication/297898429_Is_There_A_Need_For_A_Free_Trade_Agreem ent_Between_The_European_Union_And_Gulf_Cooperation_Council/fulltext/56ee53 5708aed17d09f7c824/Is-There-A-Need-For-A-Free-Trade-Agreement-Between-The-Eur opean-Union-And-Gulf-Cooperation-Council.pdf. 29 Imad K. Harb, “The US and the GCC: A Steep Learning Curve for President Trump,” Arab Center Washington DC, September 18, 2017, https://arabcenterdc.org/ policy_analyses/the-us-and-the-gcc-a-steep-learning-curve-for-president-trump/.

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have been taken by the EU and the GCC sides to step up multilateral security cooperation with a view, for the former, to playing a more active role and, for the latter, to diversifying its relations to avoid an overidentification with the United States. The first months of 2020 have seen the launch and deployment of a European maritime surveillance mission in the Strait of Hormuz (EMASoH—European Maritime Awareness in the Strait of Hormuz) with the aim to—among other things—guarantee freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.30 Institutional vs. People-to-People Relations Among the most neglected aspects in the practice and analysis of EUGCC relations stands the relationship between the respective citizens and civil society groups of different forms and shades. This dimension related to agency represents the third structural constraint in EU-GCC relations. There is currently a low level of awareness and understanding of the EU in the GCC countries. For enhanced political and economic relations to flourish, it is crucial to invest in the understanding and perception of the EU by both state and non-state stakeholders in the region, and the other way around. While institutional relations, particularly at the bilateral level, and the growing economic and financial contacts and engagements between the EU member states and the GCC countries have attracted a great deal of attention from the media and the respective public opinions, this has however not meant that the two parties have come ever closer to one another. On the contrary, media exposure, often in the form of harsh criticisms or partisan defence, has contributed to the spreading of perceptions and misperceptions, which have tended to have a disruptive potential, and to the casting of even more doubts about the viability of EU-GCC relations. Previous studies have demonstrated that in the case of EU-GCC relations the lack of effective communication and significant media exposure has represented a barrier and a key factor at the root of several

30 “French Warship to Spearhead European Mission in Gulf from Next Year,” Euractiv, December 20, 2019, https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/fre nch-warship-to-spearhead-european-mission-in-gulf-from-next-year/.

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setbacks in the interregional dialogue.31 The lack of an effective and sustained communication flow between the two regions has often led to the diffusion of collective stereotypes or fake news that demonstrate how mutual knowledge and understanding are poor and inaccurate. Furthermore, even if this obstacle has been acknowledged, very little has been done to concretely overcome it over the years. Part of the responsibility of this situation—which can be contrasted with the host of meetings, exchanges, declarations and deals that stem from relationships at the institutional level (e.g. between public institutions, governments, parliaments, private sector representatives)—lies with the media environment directly, particularly in the GCC countries. Another sector that has traditionally lagged behind in EU-GCC relations, eventually harming the development of a truly effective multilateral cooperation, is the educational one.32 The potential of the young generations on both sides, who are more than the others willing to learn across cultural divides and by experience, has not been utilised to foster a common cooperation framework creatively. Finally, the EU has purposely not pursued a formal dialogue with civil society organisations in the GCC countries, and projects and aid programmes involving civil society have been dropped because they were regarded as suspicious by the governments in the region, whose cooperation was deemed more important on other economic and—albeit with the limits mentioned above—political and security aspects. Going more in depth into the issue of the perceptions and misperceptions spread by the media, the areas of economic exchanges and strategic investments occupy an important place in light of their political sensitivity. The media coverage on both sides on these issues, such as with regard to the financial acquisitions of EU member states’ assets made by the GCC businesses, has largely contributed to disseminating fake news or inaccurate or biased information, which has not helped level the playing

31 Fatma Al Araimi and Cinzia Bianco, “The Role of Mass Media in Building Perceptions of EU-GCC Relations and Related Impacts,” Sharaka Research Paper 9, 2014, https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/Sharaka_RP_09.pdf. 32 Ahmed Ali M. al Mukhaini, “EU-GCC Cooperation in the Fields of Higher

Education and Scientific Research: The Way Forward,” Sharaka Research Paper 6, 2014, https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/Sharaka_RP_06.pdf. For more updates on the constraints and opportunities in EU-GCC relations in this domain with specific reference to vocational education and training (TVET), please see the chapter by Hanaa Almoaibed in this volume.

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field and increase mutual knowledge of the counterparts among the citizens of each bloc.33 Part of the responsibility for this situation once again lies with the fact that people-to-people contacts between the EU and the GCC countries are scarce and this also concerns the news-making sector. First, when it comes to the sources used to form an opinion about or to report on the EU, GCC media practitioners tend to rely mostly (if not exclusively) on news agencies. People-to-people links are used only marginally and this means that not much in-depth knowledge of the other part exists and that views are often held repetitively. Second, language also represents a significant barrier when it comes to consuming the other region’s homegrown media channels. The language barrier works both ways but arguably more for the European journalists who do not necessarily master Arabic.34 However, this is somehow compensated by the fact that the number of European expatriate journalists in the GCC countries is high, as journalism suffers from low prestige, suspicions and stereotypes among Gulf nationals, and this increases their direct exposure to foreign-language-speaking Gulf contacts and first-hand information.35 To nurture the public perception of EU-GCC relations among its direct stakeholders effectively, it is important that EU-GCC media provide their contribution to bringing the two regions closer through fostering a more accurate image of the other part. To that end, it is important to enhance the ability of GCC journalists to produce their own reports—particularly on foreign policy topics, given the lack of homegrown foreign policy reporting—instead of relying on the products of news agencies. In this regard, it would be helpful to have more mutual interactions between journalists, students and the youth, educational institutes, research centres and civil society organisations.

33 Examples of such articles are Peter Beaumont, “How Qatar Is Taking On the World,” The Guardian, July 7, 2012; Harvey Morris, “Qatar’s Latest Investment Stirs the French,” IHT Rendezvous, September 25, 2012; Bernard-Henri Lévy, “Money, Qatar and the Republic,” The Huffington Post, October 2, 2012; Taher Al-Sharif, “Two-Way Trakc,” The Majalla, July 24, 2013. 34 Carolyn Wakeman, ed., The Media and the Gulf: A Closer Look (Berkeley: University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, 1991). 35 Jim Naureckas, “Media on the March: Journalism in the Gulf,” in The FAIR Reader. An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the ‘90s, ed. Jim Naureckas and Janine Jackson (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), 20–27.

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Changing Contextual Dynamics Impacting on EU-GCC Relations In addition to the structural constraints identified and discussed above, contingent factors linked to the domestic situation within the GCC countries, global economic and financial developments and their impact on EU-GCC relations, and MENA regional factors have had a substantial bearing on the cooperation between the EU and the GCC over the course of the past decade. First, the events of the so-called Arab uprisings have substantially altered GCC domestic dynamics and regional equilibria in the MENA with direct ramifications on the future sustainability and foreign policy actions of the EU’s Gulf counterparts.36 On the one hand, at the domestic level, the GCC countries’ governments have attempted to rein in the short-term, anti-status quo impact of the Arab uprisings by launching bold programmes of social spending and redistribution. As demonstrated elsewhere, however, the expansion of social welfare schemes has led to growing unsustainability as the traditional measures that have been deployed to “buy social peace”, for example the expansion of employment opportunities and wages, have increased the burden on the public sector and undermined rather than fostered the goal of stimulating private sector-led growth and its ability to create jobs outside the oil and gas sector.37 On the other hand, the GCC countries’ foreign policy moves have heightened regional geopolitical conflictuality and foreign meddling in places such as Syria, Yemen and Libya, to mention only the most significant cases. All in all, this trend has highlighted the limited leverage enjoyed by the EU vis-à-vis the GCC countries and the broader MENA region and the lack of instruments in the field of foreign policy cooperation at its disposal, thus further diluting its presence and influence. Second, the global financial and economic crisis has further exposed the limits of the existing EU-GCC multilateral engagement, by significantly altering the list of priorities of both the EU and the GCC, and has pointed to the existence of new interregional equilibria. It is not by coincidence that the negotiations for the FTA mentioned above were

36 Eman Ragab and Silvia Colombo, Foreign Relations of the GCC Countries. Shifting Global and Regional Dynamics (Routledge, 2018). For further information on regional geopolitical issues and the prospects for a regional security architecture in the MENA and the Gulf, see the chapter by Adel Abdel Ghafar and Andrew Leber in this volume. 37 Silvia Colombo, “The GCC and the Arab Spring: A Tale of Double Standards,” The International Spectator 47, no. 4 (2012): 110–126.

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unilaterally suspended by the GCC in December 2008. Indeed, that moment coincided with the most acute phase of the global financial and economic crisis that gripped the European countries disproportionately compared to other regions in the world, including the GCC countries. While Europe was significantly weakened by the crisis, the GCC countries acquired a more assertive role both domestically and regionally, as testified by the foreign policy initiatives undertaken by some of the GCC countries mentioned above thanks to the exploitation of the high revenues stemming from oil and gas exports over a prolonged period of time. This has contributed to altering the balance of power in the FTA negotiations in favour of the GCC. Furthermore, Brussels has had to reassess the rationale of its relations to the GCC. This set of countries, once seen almost exclusively as key providers of energy resources and as markets for European goods, emerged as a valuable source of investment capital for European banks and institutions at a time when the EU member states were having troubles financing themselves. Changes in global economic patters, including the growing shift in the balance of economic power towards Asia, also increased the EU’s appetite for a free-trade deal with the GCC countries with a view to leveraging their favourable position as a bridge between the European and Asian markets. In the past few years, not only were the GCC countries a key destination for many European companies and businessmen looking for a fast-developing market, by the EU member states have most importantly been the recipients of substantial investments from the GCC countries. When the crisis hit Europe, the GCC countries stepped forward to provide their financial support to some of the cash-strapped EU economies mainly through the vehicle of the SWFs. On top of flagship investments—such as those in Paris Saint-Germain, London’s Shard and luxury estates in Italy—the GCC countries have shown their largesse by funding or acquiring banks (such as Italy’s UniCredit, 5 per cent of which was bought by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala) as well as by injecting money into private enterprises and public funds (such as Italy’s Fondo Strategico Italiano that was the object of substantial investments by Qatar and Kuwait in 2014).38 Additionally, defence industries across Europe—especially in the member states that have the most 38 “Gli emiri del Kuwait investono in Italia: preso il 23% del Fondo strategico della Cdp,” La Repubblica, July 1, 2014, https://www.repubblica.it/economia/finanza/ 2014/07/01/news/gli_emiri_del_kuwait_investono_in_italia_preso_il_23_del_fondo_str ategico_della_cdp-90473702/.

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developed bilateral relations with the GCC countries, namely France, Italy and the United Kingdom, but also Spain—have negotiated and acquired growing amounts of and increasingly lucrative deals and joint ventures with their Gulf partners. The combined effect of these two contingent factors has increased the structural constraints on EU-GCC relations mentioned above, at the same time heightening the need for a thorough rethink of multilateral cooperation on new grounds. In view of the sharp fluctuations of oil prices in 2014 and most recently in early 2020, as well as due to other factors such as growing demographic pressures and the recent impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on state finances and policies, the GCC countries have been confronted with the challenge of undergoing profound domestic economic and social transformations to develop more sustainable economic models.39 To that end, they have embarked upon ambitious multiyear national plans that aim to bring about far-reaching changes in both economic and social areas, embodied in the countries’ respective ‘Vision’ programmes.40 These ambitious plans of national transformation represent unique opportunities for the EU (its governments, companies and citizens’ groups), as one of the GCC countries’ main trade partners and with direct stakes in the stability and economic development of the broader MENA region, to enhance cooperation in areas of mutual interest, notably in social sectors. Foreign policy cooperation could also benefit from the promotion of mutual region-to-region interests in dealing with common challenges. Meanwhile, a deeper rift compared to the competition and disagreements of the past emerged among the GCC countries in June 2017 when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt—the Arab quartet—imposed a political and economic boycott onto Qatar. The stalemate brought about by the rift among the GCC countries has shaken the stability of the region and has also negatively affected the functioning of the GCC as a regional organisation as well as the EU’s ability to effectively partner with it.41 Faced with the impossibility to pursue multilateral relations with the GCC as a bloc, the EU has started to explore the possibility 39 “COVID-19 Impact: GCC Faces Biggest Economic Challenge in History,” Gulf News, June 6, 2020, https://gulfnews.com/business/banking/covid-19-impact-gcc-facesbiggest-economic-challenge-in-history-1.71900296. 40 See the chapter by Cinzia Bianco and Sebastians Sons in this volume. 41 See the chapter by Christian Koch in this volume.

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of further strengthening the bilateral pillar of EU cooperation with individual GCC countries and has actively pursued this path as a way to reinforce its presence in the region. Next to the opening of new EU Delegation offices in Abu Dhabi in 2013 and in Kuwait City in 2019 (which is also accredited to Qatar), in addition to the first EU Delegation opened in Riyadh in 2004, the EU has also stepped up its bilateral relations with the GCC countries through the conclusion of bilateral Cooperation Arrangements (CA). So far, CA have been signed with Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, while negotiations are ongoing with Saudi Arabia. These arrangements intend to tailor the region-wide cooperation goals spelled out in the EU-GCC Cooperation Agreement of 1988 to the specific constraints and opportunities of each GCC country, by promoting political and sectoral dialogue, exchange of information and know-how, and people-to-people interaction.

Conclusion and the Way Forward As demonstrated in the assessment presented above, structural constraints are by and large the most important factors to be blamed for the low level of EU-GCC cooperation at present. Acknowledging their structural nature means recognising the fact that they are embedded into the structure of EU-GCC relations in the way in which they were conceived at the end of the 1980s. Issues related to the prevailing bilateralism in EUGCC cooperation (the format), the strong bias in favour of economic matters (the content) and the almost complete neglect of people-topeople mutual knowledge and exchanges (the actors) can be mentioned under the category of structural constraints in EU-GCC relations. Nevertheless, the fact that they are structural does not necessarily mean that they cannot be changed or gradually overcome. Indeed, they have already had different impacts on EU-GCC relations largely depending on the contingent factors that have come in the way of EU-GCC cooperation, namely the Arab uprisings and the global financial and economic crisis of 2007– 2008, to name but the most important contingent dynamics of the past ten-fifteen years impacting on EU-GCC relations. It remains to be seen what medium-to-long-term implications the COVID-19 pandemic will have on both regions and on their mutual cooperation. Will it spur more inward-looking approaches on both sides or will it create more opportunities for cooperation, also in view of the accumulation of crises in both regions’ shared neighbourhood, namely the MENA?

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Against this backdrop, and as stressed many times by the EU, including in the framework of the EUGS, time may be ripe for a qualitatively different leap towards a more robust mutual engagement between the EU and the GCC. The EU seems to have understood that it cannot fail to develop its relations to this strategic set of partners any further and it is thus trying to engage more with them to strengthen the foundation for dialogue between the two regions.42 In order to achieve this goal, the structural constraints mentioned above should be turned into assets and opportunities with a view to removing some of the current stumbling blocks to the EU-GCC multilateral framework. By echoing the aspirations of the EU to play a more prominent geopolitical role in its neighbourhood and globally and by leveraging the concept of “principled pragmatism” as laid out in the EUGS, some concrete steps could be taken to put EU-GCC relations on a new track. First, regarding the format, it is important to go beyond the dichotomy between multilateral EU-GCC relations, on the one hand, and bilateral country-to-country cooperation, on the other. The multilateral framework could indeed benefit from the development of cooperative bilateral relations between the individual EU member states and each GCC country, provided these are pursued in a way that exploits the added-value of each and every countries’ foreign policy, that avoids duplications and internal conflicts, and instead promotes economies of scale, and that does not impinge on commonly agreed principles, goals and policies. As argued by Cinzia Bianco, “competitive European bilateralism has severely undermined efforts to formulate a common European policy on the region – and, accordingly, European attempts to use the EU-GCC format to shape developments there”.43 Second, on the content of EU-GCC relations, it is clear that having a long list of priority issues to deal with, multilaterally or bilaterally, does not necessarily represent the best strategy to develop coherent and effective cooperation. On the contrary, having an all-encompassing list risks diluting the cooperation itself by offering a cover to its ineffectiveness 42 According to the EUGS, the EU aims to pursue balanced engagement in the Gulf by continuing to cooperate with the GCC and individual Gulf countries and to deepen dialogue with GCC countries on regional conflicts, human rights and counter-terrorism, seeking to prevent contagion of existing crises and fostering the space for cooperation and diplomacy. See https://eeas.europa.eu/topics/eu-global-strategy_en. 43 Cinzia Bianco (2020), op. cit.

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in multiple areas. Such a long list of issue areas needs to be trimmed to focus on the best practices and to exploit the existing windows of opportunity. For example, while—as previously stressed—the GCC countries have tended to regard the conclusion of the FTA as a litmus test of the EU’s seriousness in developing stronger relations between the two blocs, it is clear that in the current circumstances putting too much emphasis and expectations on this issue is not a good idea. Relations should go beyond the FTA and promote instead stronger cooperation at the political, security and humanitarian levels. In the context of the geopolitical tensions besetting the Gulf region and the broader MENA, and of the postCOVID-19 emergency, efforts should be made to foster more intense foreign and security policy cooperation to address the multiple regional and international challenges. Third, the stakeholders involved in EU-GCC relations should be broadened to encompass different sets of actors. The knowledge gap between the two parties has to be gradually closed if stronger relations are to be forged. Closing this gap means fostering people-to-people connections, spreading more and more accurate information about the other side, and dispelling stereotypes and mistrust. This is a huge task that will be difficult to be accomplished if EU-GCC relations are left in the hands of policy-makers, technocrats and private sector representatives only. On the contrary, confidence-building measures involving the citizens of both regions on less controversial issues should be undertaken. In this context, education and training opportunities involving the youth need to be explored and stepped up. As evidenced in one of the previous sections, cooperation in the field of (higher) education remains limited and poor, also due to the lack of appropriate legal frameworks for interregional mobility and educational exchanges, and this represents one of the main hurdles in the way to foster reciprocal knowledge and to facilitate greater convergence at the decision- and policy-making levels. Creative ways to address this challenge need to be found. All in all, the conclusion points to the fact that in the current stage EUGCC multilateral relations should only offer the institutional, overarching setting to frame more content-oriented, cooperative bilateral relations among different actors (institutional and people-to-people) in the two blocs and on a series of issues, including education, culture, foreign policy and security, which do not necessarily cover the entire spectrum of possible areas of cooperation. The future holds a great potential for EUGCC relations if and only if concrete steps are taken now to move forward

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creatively, for example by exploring the possibility of launching variablegeometry frameworks, ad-hoc thematic groups and policy coalitions, and if institutional inertia and business-as-usual patterns are overcome.

Tailoring a Local Approach: Extending EU Policy Objectives to Facilitate Technical and Vocational Education to Work Transitions in Saudi Arabia Hanaa Almoaibed

Introduction As the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) develop innovative strategies, i.e., “Visions”, to address their largely unemployed youth populations, the education systems remain loosely connected to the labour market, resulting in a skills mismatch despite high levels of education. The abstract manner in which the narrative of “knowledgebased economy” is discussed in the GCC countries contributes little in terms of concrete mechanisms to achieve their goal of maximising a return on education investments in the form of efficient and innovative workforces. Judging by the increased investments in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) throughout the GCC, policymakers have prioritised functional employment to address youth unemployment through replacing existing technical foreign expertise with local know-how.

H. Almoaibed (B) King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_3

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In the context of EU-GCC cooperation, youth, women’s empowerment, education and research and innovation do occupy an important place and the GCC can benefit immensely from the EU’s experience and positive accomplishments within the vocational education track. The ever-changing education landscape in the region is further impacted by COVID-19, and countries will need to collaborate with one another to learn about contextual challenges and opportunities in this space. This chapter argues the importance of understanding the influence of pathway and opportunity structures in pursuit of TVET in order to increase TVET enrolment rates. While GCC states move to enhance TVET for economic reasons, they have focused their policy efforts on shifting mindsets to increase TVET enrolment. The EU experience with TVET sheds light on the importance of expanding policy and strategy beyond mindset challenges. The chapter will begin with an overview of TVET in the GCC. It will then provide a more detailed account of TVET in Saudi Arabia, and areas of previous cooperation between the Saudi and EU states. The latter part of the chapter highlights the importance of understanding transition pathways and ways in which Saudi Arabia and the GCC can collaborate with the EU on establishing stronger approaches to TVET. By collaborating on enhancing both push and pull factors, GCC states can take a more holistic approach to developing TVET that is based on sound approaches that are contextually relevant to the GCC.

TVET in the GCC Countries The preference for academic tertiary education within the GCC has made it difficult for policymakers to achieve higher TVET participation rates. The TVET education route is viewed by policymakers as a mechanism to enhance economic competitiveness and equip young people with the skills required for jobs across the labour market. However, the increased importance of tertiary education across the GCC states has led to low participation rates in TVET.1 The United Arab Emirates (UAE), for instance, has stated that they need to produce 10 Emiratis with vocational skills for every university graduate. Literature on education to work transitions in the GCC, while scarce, tends to focus on the negative attitude 1 Ahmed Ali M. Al-Mukhaini, “EU-GCC Cooperation in the Fields of Higher Education and Scientific Research: The Way Forward,” in Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads, ed. Silvia Colombo (Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014).

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towards TVET and the need to change the low status of this educational sector.2 Thus, successful TVET systems, while increasing, are rare across the GCC countries. The United Nations International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC) defines TVET as, “education that provides individuals with relevant skills to the world of work, contributes to their social well-being and that of their families, communities and their societies”.3 TVET is thus deeply tied to education, skills and work. As the region struggles to align available national skills with private sector labour market needs, it is unsurprising that GCC governments have been looking beyond expanding university education to enhancing TVET. Despite this, efforts to expand TVET have been met with resistance and limited success across the GCC countries. On the surface, the explanation lies in decades of relying on foreign labour to fill the demand for technical expertise while local workforces have been privileged with comfortable government employment. The vast majority of employed GCC citizens work for

2 Gassan Al-Kibsi, Jonathan Woetzel, Tom Isherwood, Jawad Khan, Jan Mischke, and Hassan Noura, Saudi Arabia Beyond Oil: The Investment and Productivity Transformation (Mckinsey Global Institute, Mickinsey & Company, December 2015); Abdulaziz Salem Al Dossari, “Vision 2030 and Reducing the Stigma of Vocational and Technical Training among Saudi Arabian Students,” Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training 12, no. 3 (2020); A. Baqadir, F. Patrick, and G. Burns, “Addressing the Skills Gap in Saudi Arabia: Does Vocational Education Address the Needs of Private Sector Employers?” Journal of Vocational Education and Training 63, no. 4 (2011): 551– 561; Wendy Bilboe, “Vocational Education and Training in Kuwait: Vocational Education Versus Values and Viewpoints,” International Journal of Training Research 9, no. 3 (January 1, 2011): 256–260; Steffen Hertog, “Rent Distribution, Labour Markets and Development in High Rent Countries,” LSE Kuwait Programme Paper Series, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, 2016; Faryal Khan, Walid Aradi, Wesley Schwalje, Elizabeth Buckner, and Fernandez-Carag Maricel, “Women’s Participation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training in the Gulf States,” International Journal of training Research 15, no. 3 (2014): 229–244; Rupert Maclean and John Fien, “Introduction and Overview: TVET in the Middle East - Issues, Concerns and Prospects,” International Journal of Training Research 15, no. 3 (2017); Kamel Mellahi, “Human Resource Development through Vocational Education in Gulf Cooperation Countries: The Case of Saudi Arabia,” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 52, no. 2 (2000): 329–344; Yahya Hussain Abdulaziz Murtada, “Vocational Education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” PhD Thesis, Institute of Education, 1996. 3 “Promoting Learning for the World of Work,” International Center for Technical and Vocational Education and Training , United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015, https://www.unevoc.unesco.org/go.php. Accessed December 9, 2015.

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the government, in comparison with the EU where government employment accounts for one-fifth or less of employees.4 The overwhelming public wage bills signal an aversion to private sector employment and that GCC citizens view non-government jobs as risky and overly demanding. However, the preference for government employment in GCC labour markets is a complex issue, and an over-reliance on strategies that increase private sector employment through quotas and restrictive labour policies do not consider the influence of social barriers to participation. As declining economic resources restrict governments’ ability to employ citizens in the public sector, a long-standing mechanism to ease unemployment, recognising the barriers to private sector success is necessary.5 Directing young people into TVET as a mechanism to enhance economic diversification has been a strategy that has proven challenging at best. At the GCC level, a joint working committee for Technical Education and Vocational Training meets regularly to update the GCC Ministerial Committees of Education and Labour. The committee is working towards a Strategic Action Plan for joint cooperation in TVET, building their expertise through international visits to learn about vocational systems in varying contexts. However, despite their meetings, the committee has not revealed a detailed mechanisms of measuring current needs or implementing a cooperation plan.6 Despite efforts to build TVET policies and programmes, the GCC states have had limited success with their TVET systems. Within the GCC, TVET was introduced in order to pave a pathway for local citizens to participate in the economic development that accompanied the oil boom of the 1970s. At the individual state level, GCC countries developed their TVET systems in the 1970s and 1980s, often as part of economic development plans developed in collaboration with international organisations such as the ILO.7 However, despite institutions such as the UAE-Abu Dhabi Centre for Technical and Vocational Education

4 Steffen Hertog, “Rent Distribution, Labour Markets and Development in High Rent

Countries,” LSE Kuwait Programme Paper Series, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, 2016. 5 Faris Al-Sulayman, “‘Reform Dissonance’ in the Modern Rentier State: How Are

Divergent Economic Agendas Affecting State-Business Relations in Saudi Arabia?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 47, no. 1 (2020): 62–76. 6 UNDP, Technical Vocational Education and Training Index, 2015. 7 M. Aslam, Report to the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Labour

Legislation and Labour Administration (Geneva: International Labour Organisation, 1962).

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and Training (ACTVET) and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) in Kuwait, TVET remains undervalued and under-demanded.8 Similarly, despite long-standing TVET programmes in Bahrain and Oman, graduates from TVET institutes are believed to lack the skills necessary for getting jobs, especially in the private sector where the majority of companies rely on foreign workers. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have put forth efforts to promote a narrative shift of perceptions of TVET, yet few strategies question the roots of this negative mindset beyond job opportunities. The three wealthiest of the GCC countries, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait, considered “super rentier”, are under less pressure to enhance the TVET sector in the way that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman are. However, all GCC countries are pressured by growing fiscal constraints related to geopolitical developments and global economic shifts.9 The impact on the GCC economies as a result of a shrinking Chinese oil market and a potential global recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic will only exacerbate pressures on domestic economic and political reform efforts throughout all GCC countries. The increasing number of Saudis enrolling in TVET in Saudi Arabia, the largest and potentially most difficult of the GCC countries to implement large scale shifts, is indicative of a pressing need for local technical expertise. In 2019, the Saudi budget continued to prioritise spending on education above all other sectors, earmarking SAR193 billion (EUR 42 billion) for education spending, including TVET.10 Saudi Arabia’s investments in TVET reflect an economically motivated education policy to supply the local labour force with the necessary skills to replace foreign workers, and ultimately reduce youth unemployment.

8 Andy Barnett, Bruce Yandle, and George Naufal, “Regulation, Trust, and Cronyism in Middle Eastern Societies: The Simple Economics of ‘Wasta’” [In Eng.], The Journal of Socio-Economics 44 (2013): 41–46, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2013.02.004; Wendy Bilboe, “Vocational Education and Training in Kuwait: Vocational Education Versus Values and Viewpoints,” International Journal of Training Research 9, no. 3 (January 1, 2011): 256–260. 9 Faris Al-Sulayman, “‘Reform Dissonance’ in the Modern Rentier State: How Are Divergent Economic Agendas Affecting State-Business Relations in Saudi Arabia?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 47, no. 1 (2020): 62–76; Courtney Freer, “Rentier Islamism: The Role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf,” LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series 9, 2015. 10 Ministry of Finance, “Recent Economic Developments and Highlights of Fiscal Years 2014 & 2015,” News Release, 2014.

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TVET in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia presents a case where TVET progress has been made. Saudi Arabia’s National Transformation Program, the operational arm of Vision 2030 dedicated a strategic objective and several key performance indicators to TVET: “Raising Saudis’ skill levels to match labour market needs,” stemming from the vision to provide citizens with “knowledge and skills to meet the future needs of the labour market”.11 At the end of their 2019 mission visit to Saudi Arabia, the IMF released preliminary findings in which they reported an ongoing need to improve educational outcomes and equip students with skills in demand in the private sector. They noted that the current revamping of vocational training programmes and the acceleration of education reforms will help, but that companies need to ensure that career development is a priority in HR departments.12 TVET in Saudi Arabia is governed by the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC), a semi-governmental organisation originally established by Royal Decree as the General Organisation for Technical Education and Vocational Training (GOTVET) in 1980 to consolidate all training under one umbrella. The TVTC by-laws, updated in 2007, are available in the Saudi Bureau of Experts at the Council of Minister and established the TVTC’s goal to contribute to the growth of national human resources through training. This goal is in response to labour market demands for qualified human capital. The TVTC is managed by a governor and a board of directors representing several private sector industries and government institutions, the chairman of which is the Minister of Education. In 2015, less than 10% of both job seekers and employed Saudis held intermediate technical or vocational certificates.13 By 2018, the percentage of employed people with technical specialisations rose by just three percentage points to 13%.14

11 Council of Economic and Development Affairs, National Transformation Program (Riyadh, 2016). 12 International Monetary Fund (IMF), Saudi Arabia: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2019 Article IV Mission (International Monetary Fund, 2019). 13 Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), General Goals of the Tenth Economic Plan 2015–2019 (Riyadh: Ministry of Economy and Planning, 2015). 14 General Authority for Statistics Saudi Arabia (GaStat), Labour Market Forth Quarter 2018 (Riyadh: General Authority for Statistics, 2019).

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Strategic Partnership InsƟtutes 14%

Secondary Industrial InsƟtutes 36% VocaƟonal Colleges (F) 20%

VocaƟonal Colleges (M) 30% Secondary Industrial InsƟtutes

VocaƟonal Colleges (M)

VocaƟonal Colleges (F)

Strategic Partnership InsƟtutes

Fig. 1 TVTC training institutes by type

As of 2019, TVTC individually managed 64 secondary industrial institutes, 52 colleges for men, 36 for women in addition to 24 Strategic Partnership Institutes (See Fig. 1).15 Despite the largest number of training facilities being at the secondary level, only around 2% of secondary students overall go to a secondary industrial institute, and most are enrolled in general secondary education.16 The total number of students

15 International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC), “TVET Country Report Saudi Arabia,” Geneva, 2019, https://unevoc.une sco.org/wtdb/worldtvetdatabase_sau_en.pdf. 16 General Authority for Statistics Saudi Arabia (GaStat), Statistical Yearbook (Riyadh: General Authority for Statistics Saudi Arabia, 2017).

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180000 160000 140000 120000 100000 80000 60000 40000 20000 0 2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

Fig. 2 Total number of students enrolled in TVET 2007–2017 (Source GaStat Annual Yearbooks)

enrolled in TVET institutes has grown significantly from around 15,403 in 2007 to 170,509 by 2018 (See Fig. 2). In 2017, most Saudi students over age 14 were enrolled in either secondary school (39%) or in a bachelor’s degree program (41%), while only 3.4% of students enrolled in education over age 14 are enrolled in a vocational education diploma programme (see Fig. 3). Unpublished statistics from the Ministry of Education indicate that while in the past less than 10% of secondary graduates applied to TVET, this rose to 23.3% in 2018. In addition to TVET institutes, many private companies and semigovernmental companies such as Aramco and SABIC run their own training programmes, tailored very specifically to their own needs. These are often offered as employment contracts and differ from the public offering of TVET within specialised institutes that offer 2-year diplomas. The first economic plan highlighted a need for training to fill the demand for all occupations and also mentioned the need for “guidance in order to encourage respect for productive manual labour”.17 Subsequent 17 Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), First Development Plan 1970–1975 (Riyadh: Ministry of Economy and Planning, 1970).

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Intermediate 15%

Bachelor's 41%

Secondary 40% Technical 4%

Fig. 3 Number of students (aged 14+) enrolled in main relevant education levels (Source Education and Training Survey 2017, GaStat)

economic plans continued to push for TVET expansion.18 However, the literature stresses that TVET is generally considered to be equated with low status and is meant for students who perform poorly in academic attainment. The disdain in the Saudi context is often attributed to the types of people who performed the jobs historically rather than the job itself, and analysts often attributed this to cultural values.19 To overcome these “cultural” obstacles to engaging in TVET, the GOTVET and later TVTC were established to manage the process more closely. In the contemporary economic reform climate, government expenditure on TVET is part of Saudi Arabia’s overall strategy to lower unemployment, achieve higher economic diversification and work towards building a “knowledge economy”.20 The investment in TVET assumes that more Saudis will enrol in the programmes, achieve certifications and 18 See Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), Development Plans from 1975–2015. 19 Kamel Mellahi, “Human Resource Development through Vocational Education in

Gulf Cooperation Countries: The Case of Saudi Arabia,” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 52, no. 2 (2000): 329–344; Yahya Hussain Abdulaziz Murtada, “Vocational Education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” PhD Thesis, Institute of Education, 1996. 20 Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), Achievements of the Development Plans: Facts and Figures (Riyadh: Ministry of Economy and Planning, 2013).

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work in related fields. However, as Saudi Arabia continues to invest in and grow its technical and vocational education and training system, young people are not responding at the expected rates, and by one report up to 94% prefer academic study.21 The concept of “academic drift”, not unique to Saudi Arabia, can explain the expansion of TVET as an alternative post-compulsory pathway, drawing closer ties between training and the labour market.22 Academic routes, which are especially more difficult to access for lowerincome students or those with other disadvantages, are continuously packaged as the superior ones, driving the general trend of framing vocational schools and apprenticeship programmes as the less desirable option, regardless of the benefits that can be attributed to both. This lens leads to efforts to achieve “parity of esteem”23 and to a focus on raising the status of vocational education. However, within many vocational structures, those in vocational education fields traditionally tend to enter the labour force into lower-paying positions and vocational qualifications often signal failure to potential employers. The low demand of TVET qualifications can be viewed as a result of an awareness of this form of labelling, where TVET carries symbols and connotations of a lower status and a stigma of low aspirations. Within Saudi Arabia, efforts to increase the attractiveness of TVET include a brand of training institutes called the “Colleges of Excellence” (CoE) launched in 2012. The COE “were established to be “the leading authority for Applied Training in the Kingdom in cooperation with the best international practical training organizations, and by attracting the global faculty”.24 The colleges are managed by the TVTC and run through partnerships with training providers with TVET expertise from 21 Fatima Muhammad, “TVTC in Trouble: 94% School Grads Prefer University,” Saudi Gazette (Jeddah), February 25, 2016, https://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/tvtc-introuble-94-school-grads-prefer-university/. 22 David Raffe, “Pathways Linking Education and Work: A Review of Concepts, Research, and Policy Debates,” Journal of Youth Studies 6, no. 1 (January 3, 2003): 3–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/1367626032000068136, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 1367626032000068136. 23 P. du Toit, “‘Parity of Esteem’: A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Peace Processes, with a South African Case Study,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 45, no. 3 (2004): 195–212, https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715204049593. 24 “Colleges of Excellence,” 2015, https://www.coe.com.sa/. Accessed May 2, 2015.

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around the world. The current providers listed on the public website offer courses in colleges for young men and women from age 16, with specialisations such as business administration, IT, food technology, culinary arts, beauty and fashion, health studies, health and safety, fashion design, and electrical and mechanical technology. The colleges opened in both urban and rural areas and, as discussed in the following section, have been an area through which international collaborations have expanded, particularly with the UK. However, the CoE initiative faced several difficulties that led to early termination of several contracts. The difficulties were attributed to several different issues, some cultural and others operational. One Canadian college criticised the students as being unprepared for vocational training and having poor English maths and study skills leading the college to miss its enrolment targets due to drop-out rates.25 CoE was rebranded to “International Technical Colleges”, and in 2019 there were 13 for young men, 17 for young women and one college for trainers. The International colleges are independently managed by an international training partner. The 2019 TVTC annual report noted a 34% decline in admissions to International Technical Colleges due to the closure of several of the colleges. The launch of Vision2030 and the identification of different key sectors for economic development led to the proliferation of newly established TVTC Strategic Partnership Institutes. In 2019, 33 of these were offering 110 training diplomas. The Strategic Partnership Institutes are different from the International Technical Colleges in that they are managed by an international training partner and a private sector partner.26

The EU and TVET in Saudi Arabia While the relationship between the EU and the GCC countries has been tumultuous in the past, enhanced bilateral relations and dialogue between EU members and GCC countries since 2019 may lay the foundations

25 Education Investor Global, “Saudi Arabia: Another Institution Pulls Out of Colleges of Excellence,” Education Investor Global, London, 2016, https://www.educationinvestor. co.uk/showarticle.aspx?ID=5592&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1. 26 TVTC, Annual Report (Riyadh: Technical and Vocational Training Corporation, 2019).

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for more productive cooperation and outreach between the two sides.27 The relationship between the EU and Saudi Arabia has been centred on security and oil, as the EU wants access to Saudi oil and a market for military equipment and Saudi Arabia wants a market in the EU for its oil.28 However, as relationships improve, the EU may begin to engage in the education sector that is increasingly privatising within Saudi Arabia as a very lucrative investment. Building on EU’s approach to enhancing TVET, which grounds TVET policy and governance in individual education systems and labour markets in each nation state, the EU governance experience provides insight into a myriad of challenges to implementing a successful TVET system beyond “mindset” obstacles. The status of TVET tends to be rooted in the historical foundations of an education system, and different nation states have evolved to combine several unique features in their TVET systems. The diverse range of experiences within EU countries from engaging young men and young women across social backgrounds of gender and class in apprenticeships, the dual system and employers’ engagement to developing hybrid qualifications offer a variety of ways to identify TVET needs and mechanisms for improvement. Historically, similar to trade and foreign policy, education and training cooperation between the EU and Saudi Arabia has been primarily comprised of bilateral agreements between individual states,29 with the UK sharing most of the European presence. These agreements are the result of trade missions, successful bids on GCC government requests for proposals (RFPs) and private business partnerships. One of the largest ongoing TVET international projects within Saudi Arabia is part of the International Technical Colleges (ITC) programme established in 2014 as the Colleges of Excellence initiative, now the International Technical Colleges, including European partnerships under “turnkey contracts”. The contracts were awarded through RFPs and the total investment over 5 years (from 2018) was expected to reach 4.2 27 Adel Abdel Ghafar and Silvia Colombo, The Path Towards a New Relationship

(Konrad Adenauer Stiftung 2020). 28 Beth Oppenheim. You Never Listen to Me: The European-Saudi Relationship After Khashoggi (Centre for European Reform, 2019), https://www.cer.eu/publications/arc hive/policy-brief/2019/you-never-listen-me-european-saudi-relationship-after. 29 Silvia Colombo, ed., “Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads,” IAI Research Papers (Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014).

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billion. While presenting this at the Saudi British Joint Business Council in 2018, Dr Ahmed Al Fuhaid, governor of the TVTC, noted that 18% of high school graduates are in technical training and the aim is to increase this to 40%. These numbers do not align to official reports from the government, but reflects the ambitious approach to recruit partners. Incidentally, 50% of the partners were British, and while many of the difficulties are persistent, most of the colleges are still operational, and no other European countries, except for Spain, the Netherlands and the UK, are involved in the CoE programme. The Spanish company, Mondragon Educacion Internacional (MEI), continues to operate International Technical Colleges in cooperation with a New Zealand partner. The Dutch CINOP also operates two International Technical Colleges, as well as a Strategic Partnership College. The Saudi Dairy and Food Polytechnic is one of the older partnerships, in operation since 2011 in collaboration with a local dairy company and the TVTC.30 Agreements with European organisations often result in the establishment of new companies and joint ventures. Agreements are often branded as Saudi institutions. For instance, the Saudi National Training Center for Facilities and Hospitality Management (FHM), a multilateral independent non-profit training centre that was established through an agreement with TVTC, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage and Saudi Aramco with the ambition to be the leading hospitality management training institute in the region, is an approved CTH teaching Centre. It offers certificates that are Confederation of Tourism and Hospitality, a specialist British professional awarding body and a partner of the Institute of Hospitality Partnership (established in Britain in 1938) to offer a range of specialist qualifications.31 Other bilateral business organisations facilitate trade between European countries and Saudi Arabia, such as the Saudi-British Joint Business Council, an accredited British Department of International Trade (DIT) Challenge Partner. DIT Trade challenge partners are drawn from trade associations, accredited trade organisations and other membership organisations focused on overseas trade representing all sectors and industries 30 Dairy and Food Polytechnic (DFP), “About DFP,” 2020, https://www.dfp.edu.sa/ about-dfp/?lang=en. Accessed July 5, 2020. 31 National Training Center for Facilities and Hospitality Management (FHM), 2019, https://www.fhm.edu.sa/en/. Accessed September 1, 2019.

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of the UK economy. There are around 70,000 partners and around 40% are already doing business internationally. The partnership allows them to reach out to their industry internationally through a range of partnerships affiliations and federations.32 In addition to the UK, although France does not operate colleges within Saudi Arabia, it has ongoing bilateral training agreements that predominantly involve students going to France to learn skills. Furthermore, in 2019 the Royal Commission for Al-Ula signed a deal with Campus France, a French public institution that promotes French higher education abroad to train young Saudis in hospitality and tourism.33 While TVET lay outside the King Abdullah scholarship programme, which is primarily for academic university study, some Saudis are sent abroad for training in different countries, including France and the UK. However, two sectors where vocational and technical training continue to expand are medicine and defence. Defence training is an extension of the trade relationship between France and the UK to sell military equipment in addition to training and engineering support for pilots.34

Young People, Choice and TVET Policies Because TVET is a unique kind of education that aims to prepare people for work, school-to-work transition policies often include TVET as a pathway to expedite employment as well as a pathway for those who would traditionally not participate in academic education. Unlike the youth transition literature in the GCC, European schoolto-work transition literature examines how education structures and their relationship to the employment sector influence the character and size of education pathways and differ depending on which is viewed to have a better employment outcome. It also evaluates young people’s social 32 Saudi British Joint Business Council (SBJBC), “SBJBC UK Accredited as DIT Trade Challenge Partner,” Saudi British Joint Business Council, 2018, https://www.sbjbc.org/ blog/2018/10/13/sbjbc-uk-accredited-as-ukti-trade-challenge-partner. 33 Campus France, “Campus France, Partner of the French-Saudi Agreement on the Development of the Al-Ula Site,” 2019, https://www.campusfrance.org/en/campus-fra nce-partner-of-the-french-saudi-agreement-on-the-development-of-the-al-ula-site. Accessed June 5, 2020. 34 Beth Oppenheim, You Never Listen to Me: The European-Saudi Relationship After Khashoggi (Centre for European Reform, 2019), https://www.cer.eu/publications/arc hive/policy-brief/2019/you-never-listen-me-european-saudi-relationship-after.

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backgrounds and questions access and equality of opportunities when taking race, gender, class and other social characteristics into consideration. Choice is questioned, and based on varying degrees of the influence of structure and agency, policy is often adjusted.35 TVET policy in the European Union is grounded in empirical research that incorporates transition literature insights. While a diverse range of challenges exist within the varying TVET systems of EU member states, lessons learnt are easily shared between countries at the EU level through research bodies and international centres that identify skills demands and quantify professional competencies.36 In addition to national TVET systems, priorities are also set at the EU level and promoted by several bodies and independent organisations that offer research and analysis, rather than relying on one organisation. The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) contributes to the development and implementation of European TVET policies and to implementation based on research, analysis and information and skills demands.37

35 Karen Evans, “The Challenges Vet Faces Through Its Intersection with Social Class, Gender, Ethnicity and Race,” in The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training, ed. David Guile and Lorna Unwin (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019); Diane Reay, Miriam E. David, and Stephen Ball, Degrees of Choice Social Class, Race and Gender in Higher Education, 1st ed. (London: Institute of Education Press, 2005), https://ucl.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1816043; K. Roberts, “The Entry into Employment: An Approach Towards a General Theory,” Sociological Review 16 (1968): 165–184; I. Choon and M. Lyons-Amos, “A Socio-Ecological Model of Agency: The Role of Structure and Agency in Shaping Education and Employment Transitions in England” [In Eng.], Journal of Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies 8, no. 1 (2017): 35–56; Ingrid Schoon and R. K. Silbereisen, Pathways to Adulthood: Educational Opportunities, Motivation and Attainment in Times of Social Change (London: UCL Institute of Education Press, 2018); Andreas Walther, “‘It Was Not My Choice, You Know?’: Young People’s Subjective Views and Decision-Making Processes in Biographical Transitions,” in Transitions from School to Work, ed. Ingrid Schoon and Rainer K. Silbereisen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 121–144, Chap. 6. 36 “EU Policy in the Field of Vocational Education and Training,” 2020, https://ec. europa.eu/education/policies/eu-policy-in-the-field-of-vocational-education-and-trainingvet_en. Accessed June 6, 2020. 37 European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), Vocational Education and Training in Europe 1995–2035: Scenarios for European Vocational Education and Training in the 21st Century (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020), https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/794471.

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Social and institutional factors such as gender, training provider, institutional proximity to family and family expectations all influence choice.38 While gender-blind pathways may be designed by policymakers, gender norms continue to govern choice and create invisible barriers. For instance, in the majority of countries around the world, young men are more likely to enrol in vocational education than young women,39 despite equal opportunities being marketed to both. Women report a greater detachment in vocational settings in many contexts.40 School provisions of career education and guidance are most often introduced after young people begin their choice process, and decision-making often occurs without “official” guidance, so that young people most likely base their choices on other non-official sources of information. Understanding the influence of pathway and opportunity structures is important to understanding patterns of participation. However, despite the weaknesses in opportunities along pathways into TVET, a neoliberal approach tends to play an influential role in the way policies are implemented. Rather than focus on the weak links to the labour market or strengthening push factors, many of the policies aimed at improving access focus on the individual choice-maker. Studies have shown, however, that aspirations are often high, and structural barriers tend to restrict educational achievement and access. Furthermore, the education framework, along with social, cultural and structural pressures can act to limit aspirations, pushing young people down specific pathways that are seemingly pre-determined.41 The primarily economic focus that results tends to blur some of the social and cultural dimensions of the youth phase that can provide insight into the challenges of implementing a thriving and evolving TVET structure.

38 Nicholas H. Foskett, and Jane Hemsley-Brown. Choosing Futures: Young People’s Decision-Making in Education, Training and Career Markets (London: Routledge, 2011). 39 UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth, “Youth Statistics,” 2015, https://www.un. org/youthenvoy/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/YouthStatseducation.pdf. Accessed May 31, 2019. 40 Kristinn Hegna, “Conflicts, Competition and Social Support in Female-Dominated Vocational Education–Breaking or Reaffirming Stereotypical Femininity?” Journal of Vocational Education & Training 69, no. 2 (2017): 196–213. 41 Diane Reay, Miriam E. David, and Stephen Ball, Degrees of Choice Social Class, Race and Gender in Higher Education, 1st ed. (London: Institute of Education Press, 2005), https://ucl.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1816043.

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One way to examine opportunities for young people is to look at both push and pull factors. Pull factors attract students to TVET, and are those that create routes to pursue training in its different forms.42 Push factors are those that support learning, such as curriculum, teaching quality and career guidance.43 To enhance TVET transitions, these factors must be seen as complementary, because despite the strong influence of job opportunities, the labour market is not the “final court of appeal” on the benefits of different pathways and other factors cannot be ignored. Countries in the GCC should not look to elements that can be borrowed from the EU. Instead, the GCC must identify where the push and pull factors may fall short in addressing the needs of students as well as the overall goals of the education system.

Key Channels for Cooperation Between the EU and Saudi TVET: Strengthening Push and Pull Factors In 2014, Al-Mukhaini discussed several factors that inhibited progress in EU-GCC cooperation in scientific research and higher education, highlighting mismatched expectations and priorities.44 The same can be argued of EU-GCC cooperation in TVET. However, the economic urgency felt by some GCC countries to train youth on technical skills may allow for a more productive collaboration timeline, especially in the light of new dialogue and unfolding reforms. A GCC-wide approach is necessary to envision a thriving TVET sector in all GCC states. For instance, CEDEFOP’s role in supporting policy development provides evidence that enables individual EU states to enhance policymaking, stimulating competition amongst countries to

42 David Raffe, “Pathways Linking Education and Work: A Review of Concepts, Research, and Policy Debates,” Journal of Youth Studies 6, no. 1 (January 3, 2003): 3–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/1367626032000068136. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 1367626032000068136. 43 A. Hodgson and K. Spours, “Tackling the Crisis Facing Young People: Building ‘High Opportunity Progression Eco-Systems’,” Oxford Review of Education 39, no. 2 (2013): 211–228. 44 Ahmed Ali M. Al-Mukhaini, “EU-GCC Cooperation in the Fields of Higher Education and Scientific Research: The Way Forward,” in Bridging the Gulf : EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads, ed. Silvia Colombo (Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014).

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outperform each other while holding them accountable to qualitative performance goals. The research output of CEDEFOP, with its holistic research approach, can identify key challenges and recognise trends and areas for improvement.45 The GCC joint commission on TVET could further learn from the EU experience, developing concrete mechanisms to provide alternative routes into TVET that strive to build an education system that fosters creativity and access, rather than continuing to debate inferior routes that attempt to address pressing economic needs in a myopic short-sighted manner. Here are some specific actions that could be pursued: 1. Pull factors a. Developing equitable routes into and out of TVET Because of the urgency created by linking TVET to economic outcomes, Saudi TVET strategic objectives focus on providing training to meet market needs and national goals, ignoring the student’s journey. In Saudi Arabia, TVET is not viewed as a potential route into higher education, but is distinguished as a distinct route that equips young people with specific skills for specific market needs. The result is that young people are thus trapped in a vocational setting. If students would like to continue into higher education, this is very difficult and only available through the TVTC Bachelor’s Degree programmes. In the 2019 TVTC Annual report, 5 of the 10 strategic objectives mention national development plans or aligning TVET with economic goals. Empirical evidence of young people’s experiences of TVET transitions highlight that young people view TVET as a deadend.46 While this is attributed to the mindset within Saudi Arabia, the European experience offers a different interpretation. EU policy, in contrast to the rigid Saudi transition policy, prioritises “flexible, permeable systems” of TVET, and recognises the 45 European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), Vocational Education and Training in Europe 1995–2035: Scenarios for European Vocational Education and Training in the 21st Century (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020), https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/794471. 46 Hanaa Almoaibed, “Choosing a Career in Saudi Arabia: The Role of Structure and Agency in Young People’s Perceptions of Technical and Vocational Education,” PhD, University College London’s Institute of Education, 2020.

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value of training and its applicability in different contexts. Routes into TVET should not only be for those who are the lowest achieving, and routes out of TVET should enable young people with skills applicable in a variety of workplace settings, enabling young people to find relevant and meaningful work, but also allowing them to continue education and training through entry routes back into both vocational or academic education. b. Enhancing women’s participation TVTC is expanding TVET opportunities for young women, especially in areas that are considered more feminine such as beauty and culinary arts. Considering the positive view many young women have of TVET, this is a welcome development. However, providing training opportunities solves only one part of the TVET equation, as young women still face barriers to working outside the home. Factors related to marriage, childcare and reputation influence how women make academic and career choices, but also create confliction and frustration for them.47 The EU has identified gender equality as an area for potential cooperation and can contribute to enhancing participation for women within TVET. Although gender remains an obstacle to participation in European countries as well, the EU can offer support in highlighting invisible gender bias in policy. Building regulatory frameworks for small-scale entrepreneurial or freelance work so women with qualifications can pursue work and utilise their skills. While this approach does re-enforce gendered expectations and opportunities, changes in the regulatory framework can nudge both women and their families in a direction where work opportunities in the TVET sector become more commonplace. c. Developing an apprenticeship programme Despite the majority of TVET training in Saudi Arabia taking place at the post-secondary level, training in the Saudi TVET system is a primarily classroom-based activity. On-the-job training tends to be a small component of the training process, leading to a clear skills mismatch at work. While TVET systems vary in different EU states, some EU countries such as Germany and Austria have historical long-standing apprenticeship systems.

47 Ibid.

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Other countries have struggled to build successful apprenticeship programmes. The EU could offer research and expertise in exploring the challenges to implementing a successful apprenticeship model in different contexts, especially in transitioning economies, and support the GCC countries in establishing apprenticeship pilot programmes that could provide significant training opportunities that are aligned with labour market and industry needs. 2. Push factors a. Lending curriculum expertise in new industries In an unprecedented move for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Minister of Culture announced the launch of a new study abroad scholarship programme in the arts for young Saudis in December 2019. For the first time, students could apply for funding to study fields that were arguably grounds for social exclusion in the past. Music, drama, visual arts, media and film were areas that were absent from the social sphere and academia. The ongoing cultural changes in Saudi Arabia provide an unprecedented space for action and creativity for young people. Many examples of this are available in the form of festivals, art installations and musical events. As France leads the way with the new Al-Ula tourist site, there is great potential for additional collaboration between the EU and Saudi Arabia on developing TVET curricula in new areas, focusing on quality. And focusing on the way TVET expertise can enhance and transform industries from within.48 b. Developing qualifications Saudi Arabia’s efforts to implement a national qualifications framework (NQF) are a step in the right direction to elevate the

48 David Guile and Lorna Unwin, “Vet, Expertise, and Work: Situating the Challenge for the Twenty-First Century,” in The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training, ed. David Guile and Lorna Unwin (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019).

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status of TVET.49 NQFs define qualifications using a common definition that applies across all sectors, in contrast to former qualifications systems where vocational and academic qualifications are developed separately and with different purposes. The Saudi NQF has the opportunity to elevate vocational qualifications to be on the same level of academic ones depending on the depth of specialisation. This will work towards overcoming the negative signalling of a vocational qualification. The Saudi NQF was built in collaboration with UNESCO. With EU experience in qualifications standarisation, support in implementing the framework would be an area for collaboration. EU TVET policy specifically prioritises ways to align TVET with market needs through quality assurance and feedback loops from industry experience back into curriculum. The European Training Foundation (ETF) contributes to external relations policy and the development of professional skills and competencies. Furthermore, the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework (EQAVET) would be very beneficial at the GCC level where different TVET systems can agree on competencies.50 For instance, Saudi Arabia’s ETEC has developed centralised tests and accountability measures for performance in education and training institutions. These efforts would have merit in similar contexts and could extend to the rest of the GCC. c. Enhancing careers guidance across all levels of education Secondary guidance programmes are not offered in public Saudi schools, but are available through the TVTC for current students and for jobseekers. Absence of institutional careers guidance can lead to an over-reliance on cultural information when making career decisions. There is room for the EU to contribute to building stronger career guidance programmes across the education ecosystem in Saudi Arabia that can help young people

49 Saudi Arabia Qualifications Framework (SAQF), Development of the National Qualifications Framework in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Public Education Evaluation Commission, June 2015). 50 “EU Policy in the Field of Vocational Education and Training,” 2020, https://ec. europa.eu/education/policies/eu-policy-in-the-field-of-vocational-education-and-trainingvet_en. Accessed June 6, 2020.

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make decisions based on true opportunities rather than perceptions of opportunity. One of the main EU TVET policy priorities is to offer “efficient and integrated guidance services”. However, it is important to note that career guidance cannot easily be transplanted across cultures as most theoretical approaches are underpinned by western individualist ideologies (Hooley, 2017).51 Previous attempts to adopt wholesale guidance programmes led to the overhaul of many years’ worth of work. Like all areas of cooperation, developing career guidance would need to be tailored to the Saudi context and developed as a package of initiatives designed to enhance push factors while equally enhancing pull factors for young people. These would need to be updated according to increased challenges resulting from labour market shifts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusion The early involvement of consultants in economic and institutional planning in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s, coinciding with the adoption of an economic approach in global international development organisations, where education was presented as a “productive investment with a high rate of return” has led to an overly economic approach to education and training within the country.52 It appears then that it is no accident that the policy goals of education in Saudi Arabia are framed in functional terms, similar to many other parts of the developing world despite contextual differences. For the developing world, TVET offers a specific type of education that can equip youth with skills necessary to participate effectively in the formal economy that is often industry-based and requires technical skills. The fallacy of this approach is in the numbers: young people do not enrol in TVET because they do not view TVET as a viable pathway to decent work in the formal economy. The challenges of increasing TVET will only be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Young people transitioning out of education will 51 Tristram Hooley, “The Saudi Experiment with Career Guidance: Borrowing Policy and Managing the Clash of Context and Theory,” in Career Guidance and Livelihood Planning across the Mediterranean, ed. Ronald Sultana (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2017). 52 Simon McGrath, Education and Development (London and Abingdon, Oxon, 2018).

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enter a strained labour market and reduced opportunities. Research has shown that connectivity from both the education institutions and the students’ access to Internet and devices has had a negative effect on teaching and learning.53 This is especially noticeable within the TVET sector where assessments are based on workplace skill acquisition. Recommendations to enhance funding and introduce flexible monitoring are pertinent in the sector globally.54 The diversity of TVET systems within the EU highlights the importance of addressing local factors in TVET systems, and thus make the EU a strategic partner in assisting in TVET enhancements, albeit with necessary precautions related to the GCC countries’ tendency to look for turnkey solutions and ready-to-implement policy. The EU has been successful in creating an integrated approach to enhancing performance at the regional level, especially with equivalency and identification of complementary industries. This chapter has argued that GCC collaboration with the EU can demonstrate the benefits of building new systems and enabling pathways that are lucrative for young people rather than exerting efforts on shifting mindsets. The opportunity lies in the GCC states’ ability to look at approaches rather than specific strategies, developing a clear and relevant GCC-wide programme that helps achieve better education and labour outcomes.

53 Anthony Mann, Markus Schwabe, Pablo Fraser, Gabor Fulop, and Grace Adoley Ansah, “How the Covid-19 Pandemic Is Changing Education: A Perspective from Saudi Arabia,” OECD, 2020. 54 Katherine Doherty and Carl Cullinane, “Covid-19 and Social Mobility Impact Brief #3: Apprenticeships,” The Sutton Trust, May, 2020.

Cultural and Religious Diplomacy as Soft Power in EU-GCC Relations Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Introduction This chapter explores the successes and limitations of cultural and religious diplomacy as aspects of soft power in EU-GCC relations, in part at an inter-regional level (‘Europe-Gulf’) but mostly also in initiatives between individual EU and GCC countries. Thus, the chapter will analyse the ‘place’ of cultural and religious diplomacy, as well as the larger question of ‘soft power’, in EU-GCC relations and whether this lies at the regional or the national levels, or both. The discussion of ‘soft power’ also breaks the concept down into its cultural and religious components where GCC and EU countries are concerned. This section will analyse in subsections the key developments in cultural and religious diplomacy since the 1990s and assess the degree to which they have evolved because of, or in spite of, the sometimes-fraught inter-regional relationship at the political level. Examples that will be studied will include educational exchanges and research funding, museums and culture, connections in the world of

K. C. Ulrichsen (B) Houston, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_4

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sport, and religious interaction and engagement, including more recent moves towards interfaith dialogues, as a major tool of soft power. The Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California (USC) acknowledges that there is no single definition of the term but views public diplomacy as ‘the public, interactive dimension of diplomacy’ that ‘involves a multitude of actors and networks’ and is ‘a key mechanism through which nations foster mutual trust and productive relationships’.1 Public diplomacy is, nonetheless, bound closely up with the notion of ‘soft power’ that was conceptualized and popularized by Joseph Nye in his 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, and again in his 2004 book Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. Nye described soft power as the ability to appeal to and persuade others ‘to want the outcomes that you want’ by using the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals and policies to set the agenda and to co-opt rather than coerce others to follow.2 Thomas Juneau has, separately, drawn an analytically useful distinction between power and ‘influence’, defined as ‘what a state achieves with those assets’, and ‘ambition’, which ‘consists of the intensity of a state’s interests’.3 Cultural and religious diplomacy can be effective public diplomacy tools of inter-state relations that broaden the focus of bilateral and multilateral ties beyond issues of political and economic statecraft, which affect primarily elite networks of policymakers in the first instance. The fact that the UAE and Bahrain chose to label their normalization agreements with Israel in September 2020 as the ‘Abraham Accords’ provides a case in point. A recent definition of cultural diplomacy identified it as ‘any practice that is related to purposeful cultural cooperation between nations or groups of nations’ that encompasses ‘the exchange of ideas, information, art, and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples to foster

1 “Defining Public Diplomacy,” Center for Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California (undated), https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/page/what-is-pd. Accessed May 28, 2020. 2 Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004). 3 Thomas Juneau, “U.S. Power in the Middle East: Not Declining,” Middle East Policy 21, no. 2 (2014): 40.

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mutual understanding’.4 Religious diplomacy, or ‘faith-based diplomacy’, can cover a wide array of meanings and activities, but a 2013 report by the Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World observed that ‘religion plays a role in diplomacy both as an opportunity for engagement and as a motivation inspiring actors’.5

Cultural and Religious Diplomacy in EU-GCC Relations In applying these conceptual definitions to events ‘on the ground’—the purpose of this chapter—one remains mindful of several practical challenges that needed to be overcome. One is the tension between bilateral state-to-state ties and the EU-GCC level. An attempt to bridge this gap was the organization of ‘GCC Days’ events in 2010 in selected European capitals, such as London, but while these events did promote the image of the GCC as a bloc they did so to separate European audiences.6 A similar manifestation of the tension between bilateral and multilateral diplomacy was evident in a trip to the Gulf in 2007 by Angela Merkel in her capacity as the rotating president of the European Council but which included meetings to advance German energy interests and cooperation with the region.7 Another practical challenge, which applies more to the European than the Gulf side, is that there has historically been only limited interconnectivity, on a people-to-people basis, between the regions. Whereas several generations of people in the Gulf have studied in, travelled to, and spent vacations and significant amounts of time in Europe, especially in the UK, France, Germany and Italy, the same is not as true in the opposite direction, beyond those who have lived and worked in the Gulf or, in the

4 Ien Ang, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, and Phillip Mar, “Cultural Diplomacy: Beyond the National Interest?’ International Journal of Cultural Policy 21, no. 4 (2015): 366–367. 5 Allen Keiswetter and Bishop John Chane, “Diplomacy and Religion: Seeking Common Interests and Engagement in a Dynamically Changing and Turbulent World,” The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World: U.S.-Islamic World Forum Papers, 2013, p. 2. 6 “GCC Days in London Widely Hailed,” Kuwait News Agency, October 21, 2010. 7 Abdullah Baabood and Geoffrey Edwards, “Reinforcing Ambivalence: The Interaction

of Gulf States and the European Union,” European Foreign Affairs Review 12 (2007): 549.

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case of Dubai in particular, have holidayed there or transited through the airport. There is a partial distinction in the case of the UK, owing to its historical ties with the Gulf, with groups such as the Bahrain Society and the Anglo-Omani Society gradually transitioning from original networks of ex-colonial-era officials who had served in and maintained an interest with the region to more trade- and interest-based organizations, and the Society for Arabian Studies, which became the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia in 2010. Relations between the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, as two regional blocs, have developed haphazardly over the three decades since the late-1980s, when the first bloc-to-bloc talks (involving the then European Economic Community, which evolved into the European Union in 1993) began. From the beginning, ties at a regional level have been complicated by the fact that they coexisted, often uneasily, alongside the maintenance of bilateral state-to-state relationships which often were longer-lasting and deeper-rooted. As a result, progress towards inter-regional economic and, to a lesser extent, security objectives were slower than hoped, with the breakup of almost two decades of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement in 2009 a case in point.8 Similar dynamics existed in the security and defence sphere as well as states’ preferences for strong bilateral partnerships proved hard to overcome, as interests of national (and regime) security most often trumped regional considerations.9 A similar bias towards national-level approaches was evident in the realm of cultural and, to a lesser extent, in religious diplomacy which always had more of a transnational flavour due to its supra-state significance. However, in the early years of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which was founded in 1981, concepts of power rested more along the ‘harder’ end of the spectrum, in part because the six member states faced proximate regional threats to their security and stability after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. Two years later, the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait provided another demonstration of the perils facing the smaller 8 Abdullah Baabood and Geoffrey Edwards, “Sovereign Reluctance: The Interaction of Gulf States and the European Union,” in EU-GCC Relations & Security Issues: Broadening the Horizon, ed. Christian Koch (Dubai: Gulf Research Centre, 2008), 28–29. 9 “US Approves Arms Sales to GCC As a Bloc, After Rulers Agree on Unified Military Command,” Gulf States Newsletter 38, no. 961 (January 9, 2014): 1.

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Gulf States, and Saudi Arabia as well, in a regional environment of revolutionary upheaval and inter-state military conflict.10 In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, all six Gulf States pursued individual defence cooperation agreements with selected western partner states while discussions for a collective GCC security approach faltered.11 One of the few instances of inter-regional engagement during the 1980s was the Eastern Mediterranean Activities Conference (EMAC), which brought together high schools from southeast Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf States, and regularly held athletic and academic events in Kuwait, Dubai and Bahrain.12 For its part, religious diplomacy that emanated from the Gulf, such as it was, took the form primarily of unofficial and largely ad hoc cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States in supporting the Arab mujahideen resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. During this period, the prominence of ‘hard’ military and security power in the Gulf region was manifest in the expansion of arms sales and defence networks, such as Al-Yamamah, the largest arms sale ever to involve a British company, in inter-regional relationships. So, too, was the role of elite networking facilitated by the presence of members of Gulf ruling families, including future leaders such as Sultan Qaboos of Oman and King Hamad of Bahrain, at institutions such as the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.13

New Forms of Power and Influence Beginning in the mid-1990s and accelerating rapidly in the 2000s, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in the UAE and Qatar began a process of rapid economic development that turned these three city-emirates into regional hubs with an increasingly cosmopolitan reach. This was, in part, a result of

10 Rory Miller, Desert Kingdoms to Global Powers: The Rise of the Arab Gulf (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 72–74. 11 Anthony Cordesman, Kuwait: Recovery and Security After the Gulf War (Boulder:

Westview Press, 1997), 126–129. 12 Author’s insight from having attended a high school in Athens, Greece, that was a member of EMAC and participated in events in Kuwait (until 1990) and Bahrain and Dubai thereafter. 13 Clive Jones and John Stone, “Britain and the Arabian Gulf: New Perspectives on Strategic Influence,” International Relations 13, no. 4 (1997): 12–13.

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a younger generation of decision-makers taking up positions of leadership in all three cases. Between them, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai until 2006 and Ruler thereafter, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in 2003 and Crown Prince in 2004, and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar after 1995 and until 2013, had a way of doing business that differed significantly from the way of their fathers, who had been born in 1912, 1918 and 1932 respectively. Their rise occurred just as intensifying globalizing processes began to reconfigure the nature and structure of power and influence and create new opportunities for small states in the regional and international system.14 As Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha expanded into regional hub-cities so the opportunities to engage in the forms of ‘soft’ power and influence, as described in the previous section, proliferated, and, over time, came to involve other Gulf States, such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well. The increasing visibility—and accessibility—of these countries was tied into new policy approaches by decision-makers that pitched the city-emirates as cogs in MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, events) networks, and direct flights to many dozens of destinations across Europe increased rapidly from the mid-1990s on. A far greater sense of base familiarity of ‘the Gulf’ began to emerge among a European audience who may have spent time in one or another of the Gulf States in the 2000s and later, or who saw the logos of prominent Gulf-based companies emblazoned on sports stadia and the merchandise of sports teams. The growth of Al Jazeera in Qatar after 1996 contributed, to some extent, to this greater familiarity, although more as a brand in the first decade, and only thereafter as an international channel broadcasting in English to a wider non-Arabic-speaking audience. During the 2000s, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia also became more proactively involved in aspects relating to the governance of globalization in such areas as global energy and the international financial architecture. This reflected, in part, the capital accumulation in these states after oil prices began to rise in 2003 and ushered in a decade of sustained budget surplus, with only a sharp yet ultimately brief blip in 2009, and, in the case of Qatar, returns from the decade-long investment in Liquefied Natural 14 David Held and Anthony McGrew, “Introduction,” in Governing Globalization: Power, Autonomy and Global Governance, ed. David Held and Anthony McGrew (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), 2.

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Gas (LNG).15 The aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008–2009 accelerated the visibility and extent of the GCC countries’ involvement in processes of globalization as investment from the Gulf played a significant role in recapitalizing western entities, financial and otherwise, that were hit badly by the crash. Sovereign wealth funds from the Gulf accounted for as much as one-third of the emergency financing that governments in Europe made available in response to the financial crisis in the autumn of 2008.16 It was against this backdrop of capital accumulation during the decade of high oil prices and budget surpluses that policymakers both in GCC countries and in European states became more proactive about forging new links that extended and deepened the scope of relations between the two regions. In addition to engaging in ‘soft’ power, observers of Gulf politics began also to talk of ‘smart’ power and ‘subtle’ power that also began to define the parameters of engagement during the 2000s. Smart power was defined by Joseph Nye as ‘the combination of the hard power of coercion and payment with the soft power of persuasion and attraction’.17 Officials in the UAE saw themselves as developing smart power approaches to international affairs in part by using economic development in Africa and Asia to enhance its global profile and more assertively linking this profile with state-branding initiatives worldwide.18 The concept of ‘subtle’ power was coined in the Gulf context by Mehran Kamrava, a long-time professor at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service branch campus in Qatar. Drawing on the insight gleaned from his decade in Doha, Kamrava suggested that subtle power was ‘a combination of bringing resources to bear, enjoying international prestige derived from and commensurate with norm-entrepreneurship and being positioned in such a way as to manipulate circumstances and the weaknesses of others to one’s advantage’.19 Staying in Qatar, a team of authors that included Abdulaziz al-Horr, later the director of Qatar’s 15 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, “Rebalancing Global Governance: Gulf States’ Responses to the Governance of Globalization,” Global Policy 2, no. 1 (2011): 65. 16 Richard Youngs, “Impasse in Euro-Gulf Relations,” Foundation for International Relations and Foreign Dialogue (FRIDE) Working Paper No. 80, 2009, p. 1. 17 Joseph Nye, The Future of Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), xiii. 18 N. Janardhan, “The UAE Evolves into a ‘Smart Power’,” Gulf Today, April 24, 2019. 19 Mehran Kamrava, Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,

2013), 60–61.

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Diplomatic Academy, published a chapter in a 2016 volume co-edited by Dr. Lulwah al-Khater, the future spokeswoman for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Assistant Foreign Minister. The team of authors drew up a concept of ‘nested power’, which they described as ‘the ability of a state to use various tools and resources at the domestic, regional, and international levels’ to describe Qatar’s ‘international image, visibility, and impact’.20 In the Qatari context, but applicable to most of the other GCC countries as well, the authors suggested that the accrual and projection of nested power built upon a range of both soft and hard forms of power. Military intervention, security agreements, arms deals, military bases, investment, foreign policy, media, aviation, international events, labor agreements, education, research, art, sponsorship, scholarship, training, mediation, financial aid, international cooperation, partnership and alliances, sport, regional cooperation, entertainment, awards, branding, trade, lobbying, security agreements and military bases.21

This broader context of shifting notions of ‘power’ and ‘influence’ allowed the GCC countries—especially the geographically and demographically smaller states of Qatar and the UAE—to redefine the limits of their ability to ‘punch above their weight’ and project new linkages that extended far beyond energy relations. Institutional agreements and cooperation in a wide array of fields—ranging from education and research to sport and leisure and religious interaction and interfaith dialogue—became far more prominent and active components of GCCEU ties at both a bilateral and (to a lesser extent) multilateral level. While these connections were underpinned (and made possible) by economic resources, their impact on individuals and communities was far greater than in any previous period of EU-GCC relations.

20 Abdulaziz Al Horr, Ghalia Al Thani, Mohamed Evren Tok, and Hany Besada, “Qatar’s Global–Local Nexus: From Soft to Nested Power?’ in Policy-Making in a Transformative State: The Case of Qatar, ed. Mohamed Evren Tok, Lulwah Al Khater, and Leslie Pal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 355. 21 Ibid., 364.

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Cultural and Religious Diplomacy in Action In this section, the focus turns to the key aspects of cultural and religious diplomacy that have broadened and deepened the relationship between the EU (and Europe more broadly) and the GCC in recent decades. As noted above, the projection of cultural and religious diplomacy was intended to reach beyond the political and economic components of statecraft, which primarily affect policy-making elites in both regions, and create and strengthen links at societal and individual levels, and the enthusiasm with which the UAE and Israel, in particular (less so Bahrain) have embraced the normalization of relations after the signing of the Abraham Accords indicates the resonance of such approaches at both political and public opinion levels. Four sub-sections explore how cultural and religious diplomacy has played out ‘on the ground’ and contributed to greater interactivity and familiarity among states between the two regions. Higher Education and Research Partnerships Academic and research partnerships between higher education institutions in the EU and the GCC countries have proliferated since the 1990s and have resulted in durable new connections between the regions. The period coincided with two macro-trends in education and higher education that saw a significant expansion of private campuses in the GCC countries and, in the UK in particular, a decline in core government funding that forced university administrators to look further afield for support. More than 100 new colleges and universities were formed in Saudi Arabia alone between 2003 and 2007 and, in the same period, 40 branch campuses of Western universities were established in the UAE and Qatar.22 By 2009, the UAE accounted for 41 of the 160 international branch campuses in existence around the world, more than any other country, with British institutions among the most active in opening branch campuses in the country.23

22 Vincent Romani, “The Politics of Higher Education in the Middle East: Problems and Prospects,” Brandeis University Crown Center for Middle East Studies: Middle East Brief No. 36, 2009, p. 1. 23 Jason Lane, “International Branch Campuses, Free Zones, and Quality Assurance Policy Issues for Dubai and the UAE,” Dubai School of Government Policy Brief No. 20, 2010, p. 2.

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In addition to the opening of British branch campuses in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, and the decision of University College London in 2010 to participate for ten years in the Education City cluster of universities in Doha, France also saw the opening of several high-profile institutions as well. Among the most prominent French examples were the HEC Paris business school, which became the first European partner in Education City in Qatar, and the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi which was established in 2006. Meanwhile the German Technology University of Oman (GUtech) opened in 2007 in a joint venture involving the RWTH Aachen University, one of the highest-ranked research universities in Europe, and Oman Educational Services, a state-owned entity in Muscat. These examples are just the most prominent of the many institutional partnerships that have seen European universities branch out to the Gulf since 2000 albeit on a country-to-country basis rather than under any specific EU-GCC framework. Closer institutional ties went in the other direction as well and took the form primarily of Gulf-based entities supporting European universities and research programmes with endowments and programmatic funding for specific academic components. Older partnerships that predated the 2000s existed in the UK at the University of Exeter and Durham University, which had buildings named for the Ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qassimi, a graduate of both universities. The AlQassimi Buildings housed the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, in Exeter, and the School of Government and International Affairs, in Durham, both areas of specific academic relevance. Moving into the 2000s, the UAE supported the flagship Sheikh Zayed Lecture Theater at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), which opened in 2008, and, in a separate agreement, the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy provided seed funding for the LSE’s new Middle East Center, which was launched in 2010.24 By 2010, the LSE had an Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East and a Kuwait Professorship, the latter a part of a ten-year agreement with the Kuwait Foundation

24 “LSE Focuses New Center on Collaboration with the People and Institutions of the Middle East,” LSE Press Release, May 24, 2010.

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for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) signed in 2007 and extended in 2017 for a further five years.25 A December 2017 report by Universities UK found that 53 British institutes of higher education were then active in the GCC countries with the highest number in the UAE followed by Saudi Arabia. Their activities covered a spectrum from the full-fledged branch campus operation to research collaboration initiatives, transnational educational partnerships, continuous professional development, and executive education and training.26 These partnerships have not been without their challenges, as with the case of Matthew Hedges, a British PhD student arrested after conducting dissertation interviews in the UAE in 2018 and subsequently accused of spying and sentenced to life imprisonment before being released after a public and political outcry in the UK and advocacy from academic and professional associations.27 Deeper engagement in the educational sphere has extended beyond higher education and beyond the university sector. High schools have also established partnerships and branches in the GCC countries, again led by British public schools such as Repton and Winchester, in Dubai, and Sherborne in Qatar.28 The UAE and Qatar have additionally established separate tie-ups with British historical archives that contain repositories of historical records relating to the Gulf region during its era of British protection. The British Library partnered with the Qatar Foundation and the Qatar National Library in 2015 to digitize 1.1 million images of Gulf history, while in 2017 the UK and the UAE National Archives signed an agreement of their own to create an Arabian Gulf Digital Archive with approximately 500,000 images.29 The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) established a branch of its think-tank in Qatar in 2007 while, a 25 In the interest of full disclosure, the author was employed by the LSE as the Kuwait Research Fellow on the Kuwait-funded LSE programme between 2008 and 2013 and was a member of the LSE Middle East Center between 2010 and 2015. 26 “State of the Relationship: UK Higher Education Engagement with the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf,” Universities UK, Education Insight, 2017, pp. 9–11. 27 Andrew England and Simeon Kerr, “Universities Challenged: Scrutiny Over Gulf Money,” Financial Times, December 12, 2018. 28 Qatar’s current ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, himself attended Sherborne School in the UK. 29 “British Library and Qatar Foundation Extend Partnership to Digitize 1.1 Million Images of Gulf History,” British Library Press Release, January 19, 2015; “Joint Project

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decade later and in the other direction, the UAE was behind the creation of the Bussola Institute in Brussels in 2018.30 The significance of the educational and research exchanges that proliferated in both directions after the 2000s is that they moved the point of EU-GCC relations and of Europe-Gulf interaction more broadly beyond the elite level and significantly broadened its scope by involving larger and more diverse groups of people. The academic sub-field of Gulf Studies in Europe and the UK, for example, expanded rapidly after 2000 due in large part to research funding from the Gulf, and enabled the training of a new generation of scholars and students. Academic exchanges facilitated and strengthened people-to-people connections that complemented existing government-to-government and business-to-business ties. While these linkages operated predominantly within national frameworks, cumulatively they contributed to a ‘de-mystifying’ of the two regions—Europe and the Arabian Peninsula—by exposing many more people of each to the culture of the other. It remains to be seen whether and to what degree the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic hits such linkages in the educational and research sphere as well as the museums and cultural space analysed below. In the short term, the pandemic has disrupted travel and tourism and has subjected all Gulf (and European) economies to budgetary pressures and short-term ‘survival’ spending packages that may precede deep cuts to spending in the immediate post-pandemic period. As such, there could be a hit to spending on items such as educational and cultural projects in both regions if governments and private institutions alike are forced to make difficult choices about project priorities in the recovery phase, which could last for several years into the 2020s. Museums and Culture In November 2017, the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened its doors in a lavish celebration that formed the centrepiece of Emmanuel Macron’s first visit to the UAE as President of France. Designed by the French ‘starchitect’, with UAE to Create New Website,” The National Archives (UK) Press Release, August 17, 2017. 30 “RUSI to Establish a Branch in Doha, Qatar,” RUSI Press Release, June 25, 2007; Mark Tighe, “UAE-Backed ‘Lobbying Outfit’ Bussola Institute Allowed to Use Farmleigh House for Free,” The Times, June 16, 2019.

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Jean Nouvel, the Louvre Abu Dhabi was part of a 30-year, $1.27 billion cultural partnership between France and the UAE signed in 2007, and its foundation stone had been laid in 2009 by the-then French President Nicholas Sarkozy.31 Priceless artefacts and works of art from 17 French museums and institutions were on display as the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened and illustrated how both sides saw art and cultural diplomacy as essential elements of soft power and image projection abroad. Zaki Nusseibeh, a former translator to the UAE’s founding President, Sheikh Zayed, and now a Minister of State, explained at the opening how ‘it is no longer sufficient to have military or economic power if you are not able to share your values. Exchange – this is what soft power is about’. Significantly, Nusseibeh alluded also to a geopolitical component of cultural diplomacy when he added that heavy investment in education and culture ‘has become more important because of what happened with the radicalization of groups that have kidnapped Islam (…) It is against everything that this country stands for’.32 Sixteen months after the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened, Qatar celebrated the opening of its new National Museum in Doha which also was designed by Jean Nouvel. While the Qatari approach to museums has been more nation- and region-centred than Abu Dhabi, with a focus on Qatari history, and on Arab and Islamic art, the opening of Nouvel’s museum, shaped after a desert rose, was another milestone in Gulf cultural diplomacy. Once again, the lavish launch was an opportunity to showcase a Gulf state—Qatar, in this instance, rather than the UAE—as at the heart of a regional boom in cultural institution-building, just as the launch of the Museum of Islamic Art a decade earlier, in 2008, had also put Qatar ‘on the map’ as a cultural destination.33 Nouvel has also worked in Saudi Arabia, where he has designed a luxury resort in the historic settlement of Al Ula which forms one of the pillars of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to establish

31 Angelique Chrisafis, “Macron Hails Power of Beauty as Louvre Opens in Abu Dhabi,” The Guardian, November 8, 2017. 32 Doreen Carvajal, “Louvre Abu Dhabi, a Cultural Cornerstone Where East Meets West,” New York Times, November 7, 2017. 33 Javier Pes, “Despite a Saudi Blockade, Qatar Opens a Vast Jean Nouvel-Designed National Museum,” Art World, March 27, 2019.

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a domestic Saudi heritage and tourism sector.34 France has been directly involved as a state partner in the development of Al Ula through an official collaboration between the Saudi Royal Commission for Al Ula and the French Agency for the Development of Al Ula (Afalula)—an agreement signed during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Paris in April 2018.35 The executive chairman of Afalula, Gerard Mestrallet, recalled in 2020 how he was appointed by French President Macron with a dual mandate ‘to plan the project directly with RCU [the Royal Commission for Al Ula], and, on the other hand, to mobilize the vast range of French expertise in all areas of the project: engineers, architects, urban planning, infrastructure for roads, energy, transport, water, and gastronomic training’.36 Other aspects of cultural diplomacy included the organization of special displays of Arabian history at museums in Europe and around the world, put together in some cases by the host institution but taking advantage in others of travelling exhibitions designed by entities in the Gulf. An example of the former was the ‘Ancient South Arabia’ display at the British Museum of artefacts in the museum’s possession from the region which today comprises Yemen and parts of southern Saudi Arabia and Oman. Meanwhile, an example of the latter was the ‘Roads of Arabia’ travelling exhibition organized by the Saudi Commission for Tourism & National Heritage, which brought the history and heritage of the Arabian Peninsula to life for millions of visitors in European and North American cities, including Paris, where it was exhibited at the Louvre, Berlin, where it was hosted by the Pergamon Museum, and Rome, at the National Museum. Religious Interaction While the Saudi government chose to make its history and heritage the focus of the travelling exhibition noted above, in Oman the authorities took a different approach when it came to designing and ‘exporting’ a 34 Emily Conklin, “Jean Nouvel Is Designing a Luxury Resort in the Saudi Arabian Desert,” The Architect’s Newspaper, August 20, 2019. 35 Melissa Gronlund, “France and Saudi Arabia Reveal Details of Their Partnership for Al Ula Development,” The National, October 7, 2019. 36 Randa Takieddine, “The French Agency Helping Saudi Arabia Realize Al Ula’s Potential,” Arab News, February 21, 2020.

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message about Omani Islam and religious moderation. This took the form of an exhibition, entitled ‘Tolerance, Understanding and Coexistence: Oman’s Message of Islam’, organized by the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in Muscat, which was exhibited first in schools in Oman itself and then sent around the world to at least 35 different countries, including at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO.37 Displayed in museums, cultural centres, and educational and religious institutions, the exhibition was more about highlighting the Omani approach to religious tolerance and moderation than about ‘forcing’ through a message, and it therefore differed from other instances of religious diplomacy from the Gulf. In contrast to the understated Omani approach to putting its message across, international religious diplomacy as practised by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in recent years has been more overtly assertive. In the words of one scholar of religious authority in the Middle East, there has been a ‘declaration proliferation’ in the international politics of religious tolerance.38 Especially in the post-September 11, 2001 period, messaging and virtue signalling has become a component of religious diplomacy by Arab governments keen on promoting ‘moderate Islam’ in response to US-led pressure. Examples included the 2004 Amman Message coordinated by King Abdullah of Jordan, the 2006 Mecca Declaration organized by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the 2016 Marrakesh Declaration convened by King Mohamed VI of Morocco, and the Mecca Document put forward by the Muslim World League in Mecca in May 2019.39 Much of the use of religious diplomacy initially involved Saudi Arabia and occurred against the backdrop of the turbulent aftermath of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror that followed. Europe was a key location for this statecraft. King Abdullah travelled to the Vatican in November 2007 for a historic meeting with Pope Benedict that focused not only on the need to find a just solution to Arab–Israeli issues but also to collaborate between Muslims, Christians and Jews. The king followed up in July 2008 by convening an interfaith dialogue in Madrid alongside the King of 37 “Oman’s ‘Message of Islam’ Exhibition Highlights Religious Tolerance, Peace,” Times of Oman, November 12, 2018. 38 Annelle Sheline, “Declaration Proliferation: The International Politics of Religious Tolerance,” Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, Berkley Forum, July 11, 2019. 39 Ibid.

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Spain, Juan Carlos, that called on the leaders of all faiths to find common cause and work together to defeat extremism; more than 300 religious figures from 50 countries attended, including Buddhists and Hindus as well. Once again, there was a Saudi follow-up, this time in the form of the funding for and foundation of an interfaith centre in Vienna—the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue—which opened in 2012.40 However, the centre became a lightning rod for protests at Saudi human rights abuses and was threatened with closure by the Austrian authorities in 2019, demonstrating the vulnerability of religious (and cultural) diplomacy initiatives to the intrusion of political and geopolitical tensions.41 The use and utility of religious diplomacy increased further after 2014 with the need to counter the ideology of the so-called Islamic State as well as the escalating rivalry with Iran while, after 2017, regional geopolitics entered the equation as Saudi Arabia and the UAE became embroiled in a bitter dispute with Qatar (and also Turkey) that, in part, revolved around longstanding differences towards the intermixing of religion and politics. It was little coincidence that when King Salman of Saudi Arabia convened three summits (of the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) to discuss spiralling tensions in the Middle East in May 2019 he chose to host them in Mecca to give added gravitas to their deliberations and outcome.42 The wielding of religion as a tool of soft power transmission therefore increased, from multiple Muslim actors, in the late-2010s, as the ‘Islamic space’ for spreading messages of ‘moderate Islam’ increasingly became contested and mixed up with geopolitical tensions.43 One of the most active participants in religious statecraft has been the UAE-based Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies which has assertively entered (and shaped) debates about interfaith dialogue and religious freedom with meetings in Abu Dhabi that gather Christian,

40 David Rundell, Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at a Crossroads (London: I.B. Tauris, 2020), 202. 41 Francois Murphy, “Austria to Shut Saudi-Backed Religious Dialogue Center in Rights

Protest,” Reuters, June 12, 2019. 42 “Mecca Summit Supports Palestinians, Backs Saudis in Iran Standoff,” Al Jazeera, June 1, 2019. 43 Peter Mandaville and Shadi Hamid, “Islam as Statecraft: How Governments Use Religion in Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy at Brookings Paper, November 2018, pp. 25– 26.

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Jewish and Muslim leaders. Set up by the Mauritanian religious scholar Abdullah bin Bayyah in 2014 to counter religious violence, the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies released in December 2019 a ‘Charter of New Alliance of Virtue’ during its sixth annual assembly in the UAE.44 The charter, which focused on identifying practical ways to work towards religious freedom, tolerance and interfaith cooperation, was not without controversy after a European delegate noticed discrepancies between its Arabic and English texts.45 This reinforced perceptions that the purpose of such declarations and summitry was often aimed at domestic and international constituencies in different ways.46 The three-day visit of Pope Francis to the UAE in February 2019 illustrated the contours of religious diplomacy and messaging at work. While the visit was of legitimate historical significance, as the first Papal trip to the Arabian Peninsula, it also aligned squarely with the UAE statebranding narratives that promoted 2019 as the ‘Year of Tolerance’, and the UAE government formally established a Ministry of Tolerance in the week prior to Pope Francis’s visit.47 The Pope’s visit was covered extensively in English-language pan-Arab media outlets, many of them Saudi-owned or funded, and by UAE-linked entities in Europe such as the previously-noted Bussola Institute in Brussels, which held a tolerance and interfaith ‘majlis’ in Brussels a week later which convened 20 diplomats, civil society representatives, and religious leaders to consider steps to translate the Papal visit into lasting changes.48 The visit was also covered by the ‘European Eye on Radicalization’, an online network with seeming yet undeclared links to the UAE whose coverage often focused on targets of Emirati geopolitical ire such as Qatar, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood.49 44 “Charter of New Alliance of Virtue: Full Text,” Gulf News, December 11, 2019. 45 Author interview, United Kingdom, May 2020. 46 Sheline, Declaration Proliferation. 47 Aya Batrawy, “UAE Launches ‘Tolerance’ Ministry Days Before Papal Visit Despite Reports of Widespread Human Rights Abuse,” The Independent, February 2, 2019. 48 Angus Taverner, “The Values That Bind Us: Tolerance and Inter-Faith Dialogue,” Report on Bussola Institute ‘Majlis,’ February 12, 2019. 49 Christian Koch, “Building Bridges Through Cultural Diplomacy: Carrying the Messages of the Pope’s Visit to the UAE Going Forward,” European Eye on Radicalization, February 13, 2019. For examples of the Eye’s focus on geopolitical issues that have raised questions about its provenance, see “The Billions and Extremism – Qatar and

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In August 2020, the UAE and Israel announced they had agreed to normalize relations, and on September 15, 2020, together with Bahrain, signed the ‘Abraham Accords’ at a White House ceremony attended by President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Emirati and Bahraini foreign ministers. While the text of the agreement signed by Bahrain and Israel was relatively short and vague (reflecting the fact that Bahrain had only agreed to join the Accords four days earlier), the text of the Emirati-Israeli agreement had far more detail and made specific mention of cooperation in the fields of education, tourism, culture and sport.50 Exchanges began soon after, reflecting the desire of both parties to action the normalization and make the relationship between the UAE and Israel a ‘warm’ one rather than the ‘cold peace’ that marked Israeli relations with Egypt and Jordan after 1979 and 1994, respectively. Although not specific to Europe-Gulf relations, the Abraham Accords nevertheless demonstrated the convening appeal of religious and cultural aspects of diplomacy in widening political and popular horizons. On a less positive note, the furore across much of the Arab and Islamic world at comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron in the aftermath of the horrific killing of a French schoolteacher in October 2020, illustrated the continuing sensitivity of religion in inter-regional relations.51 There were calls in Qatar for a boycott of French goods while in Saudi Arabia several people were injured in an attack on an Armistice Day commemoration in Jeddah attended by the French Consul the following month.52

the UK” (December 4, 2018), “Why Saudi Arabia’s Deradicalization Program is Successful” (June 10, 2019), “India and the United Arab Emirates: A Vital Strategic Partnership” (September 6, 2019), “Qatar’s Abuses Remain a Threat to the Region” (April 15, 2020), “How Erdogan Is Blackmailing Europe” (May 11, 2020), and more than a dozen ‘investigations’ into Muslim Brotherhood activities in different European states, including Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. 50 “Full Text of the Abraham Accords and Agreements between Israel and the United

Arab Emirates/Bahrain,” CNN , September 15, 2020. 51 Michael Safi, Redwan Ahmed, Akhtar Mohammad Makoii, and Shah Meer Baloch, “Anger Towards Emmanuel Macron Grows in Muslim World,” The Guardian, October 28, 2020. 52 “Several Injured in ‘Bomb Attack’ on Armistice Day Ceremony at Saudi Cemetery,” France 24, November 11, 2020.

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Sport as a Tool of Soft Power Although not strictly a ‘cultural’ activity, modern sport does have cultural connotations as it is played and followed by huge numbers of people around the world and modern sporting associations and teams have expanded into highly visible global brands that do exert a genuine transnational appeal. As such, the sporting arena has also evolved into a potent branch of soft power projection and this is especially the case with football, which by the twenty-first century had truly become a ‘global game’.53 With Europe happening to host many of the most historic and most popular football clubs in the world, European football became a powerful component of soft power projection which, since 2000, has become interlinked with the GCC countries’ attempts to use the broad societal appeal of sport for branding purposes. The deployment of GCC soft power in football has taken different forms. European clubs have forged ahead with partnership agreements with entities and individuals in the GCC countries that have ranged from a full takeover (Manchester City by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008 and Paris Saint-Germain by Qatar Sports Investment in 2012) to sponsorship agreements and stadium naming rights. The three major Gulf-based airlines became particularly visible in their sponsorship of team shirts and, in the case of Emirates and Etihad, the renaming of the Arsenal and Manchester City stadiums, meaning that their brands became part of the lexicon of the modern European football fan. The matching of Gulf sponsorship to some of the most elite and prestige sporting brands in the world was evident in Spain’s ‘superclassico’ matches in the mid-2010s when Real Madrid and FC Barcelona faced each other bearing the logos of Emirates and Qatar Airways, respectively.54 Not all club takeovers proved a success though. For every Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain there is a tale of Portsmouth, Notts County and Malaga, examples of Gulf takeovers which ended in ignominy

53 Cf. David Goldblatt, The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-First Century (London: Macmillan, 2019). 54 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, The Gulf States in International Political Economy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 57–58.

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or failure when the promised investment into the team failed to materialize.55 European football also became embroiled in the intra-Gulf rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar after 2017 as a Saudi-based entity naming itself ‘BeoutQ’ began illegal broadcasting of sporting events whose rights were held by beIN Sports, a Qatar entity formerly known as Al Jazeera Sport until a rebranding in 2013.56 However, the broad appeal of sport to create positive connections and change people’s perceptions for the better was evidenced in the regeneration of parts of Manchester as part of the Abu Dhabi-Manchester City tie-up and in the hope with which Newcastle United supporters greeted the potential takeover of their team by a consortium that involved the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia in 2020.57 It is not football alone that has been instrumentalized as a tool of sports diplomacy in Europe-Gulf relations. Similar links developed in sports such as Formula One motor racing and pro cycling, both sports with a deep history and wide popular appeal in Europe. In Formula One, Bahrain became the first site of a Grand Prix in the Gulf in 2004 and was followed by Abu Dhabi’s spectacular season-ending ‘day-night’ Grant Prix in 2009, and regular talk of Saudi Arabia also bidding to host a Grand Prix in the early-2020s.58 In pro cycling, both Bahrain and the UAE have formed ‘national’ cycling teams that compete at the highest level, including at the Tour de France, with the Bahrain team entering into a partnership in 2020 with the British sports car manufacturer McLaren, which is itself majority-owned by the Mumtalakat Holding Company, the sovereign wealth fund of Bahrain.59 While the sporting arena has contributed to a significant widening of connections between Europe and the Gulf, at least in brand recognition 55 Paul Kelso, “Fresh Doubts Over Portsmouth Owners as Club Fails to Pay Wages Again,” The Daily Telegraph, January 6, 2010; Harry Reardon, “Notts County and the Bizarre Takeover of 2009,” These Football Times, April 13, 2016; Tom McGowan, “Malaga’s Malady: When Foreign Ownership Goes Wrong,” CNN , August 23, 2012. 56 Tariq Panja, “The Brazen Bootlegging of a Multibillion-Dollar Sports Network,” New York Times, May 9, 2018. 57 Tom Kershaw, “Newcastle Supporters 97% in Favour of Takeover Despite Concerns Over Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Record,” The Independent, April 25, 2020. 58 Alex Hornell, “The Business of Sports in the Gulf Cooperation Council,” Sport Connect, November 9, 2018. 59 Anthony McAuley, “Bahrain to Set New Course for McLaren Group After Ron Dennis Bows Out,” The National, July 1, 2017.

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and popular appeal, it has also led to concerns over ‘sportswashing’ and, in the case of Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, generated considerable media interest that has shone an often-unflattering searchlight onto domestic labour practices in Qatar and, to a lesser extent, other countries in the GCC. These concerns are unlikely to disappear and may become more visible as the 2022 World Cup draws nearer and the GCC countries’ involvement in sport becomes more direct, with the furore over the Saudi state-linked takeover of Newcastle a case in point.60 In Germany, supporters of Bayern Munich have protested the club’s close links with Qatar and expressed vocally their opposition to the team using Doha as a base for their annual winter training camp.61

Conclusion There has therefore been a substantial—and substantive—growth in connections between the EU and the GCC countries that have created additional linkages between the two regions moving beyond the political and economic/energy dimensions. A lot of the ties that have developed since 2000 have been the result of cultural and religious initiatives that have contributed to an expansion of inter-regional and intercultural exposure among peoples and communities from both regions. Such ties may, to some extent, proliferate in the aftermath of the economic and social impact wrought by the coronavirus outbreak in 2020 if capital from the GCC region is once again routed into European institutions and entities, as it was during and after the financial crisis, and results in the further growth of connections and ties between the two regions. As this chapter has observed, the primary locus of such connections has been individual countries rather than at the collective EU or GCC level. In the immediate term, this trend is likely to continue as both regional organizations continue to face ongoing challenges to their cohesion and effectiveness, to say nothing of the policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic that have emphasized national rather than bloc-level measures in both regions. Moreover, both the EU and the GCC continue to face challenging issues of internal cohesion that, in the case of the Eastern 60 Miguel Delaney, “Saudi Arabia’s Takeover of Newcastle Is Nakedly Political—It’s About Sportswashing, Not Football,” The Independent, April 21, 2020. 61 “Bayern Munich Fans Vent Anger at Club over Qatar’s Rights Abuses,” Middle East Online, January 17, 2020.

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Mediterranean and Libya, are intersecting and acquiring a regional geopolitical dimension. The fact that European and GCC countries are more closely involved in an expanded and increasingly overlapping ‘regional neighbourhood’ will inevitably add to the scope and scale of issues that transcend the two regions and necessitate multilateral as well as bilateral tracks in response. While security and geopolitical issues such as eventual post-conflict reconstruction and recovery in Syria and Libya as well as political and economic stabilization across North Africa might dominate this intersection of interest, cultural, religious and public diplomacy engagement can and may continue to grow around the thickening layers of mutual interest identified in this chapter.

Domestic Economic Plans and Visions and Opportunities for Cooperation with Europe Cinzia Bianco and Sebastian Sons

Introduction Relations between the European Union (EU) and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) remain characterised by unexploited potential. Since the beginning of relations in the 1980s, EU-GCC engagement has been hurdled by the strait-laced approach which characterises the EU’s foreign relations and by the challenge to find common ground to tackle normative differences in crucial sectors, from trade regulations to human rights.1 For instance, despite the fact that the EU and the GCC formalised their relations in 1988 with the signing of the EU-GCC Cooperation Agreement, the conclusion of the ambitious

1 Christian Koch, “Constructing a Viable EU-GCC Partnership,” LSE Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, no. 1 (January 2014): 1–32, https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55282/1/Constructing-a-viable-U-GCC-relationship.pdf.

C. Bianco (B) · S. Sons Berlin, Germany

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_5

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Free Trade Agreement (FTA) envisioned in 1988 is extremely unlikely.2 Arguably, the development of political ties has been even more problematic.3 Furthermore, cooperation of the GCC countries with Europe is mostly limited to bilateral relations. It is then noteworthy that, despite the aforementioned limitations, commercial and financial ties between Europe and the GCC have been on the rise in recent years. The EU and the GCC are experiencing an increasingly high level of financial interdependence and the GCC countries are an increasingly lucrative export market for the EU’s manufacturing industry.4 In 2017 alone, the export of goods manufactured in the EU to the GCC countries amounted to some e99.8 billion (Euro), with defence sales taking the lion’s share.5 In addition, a number of GCC’s sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have invested in the EU following the 2008 global financial crisis, providing an important lifeline to Europe’s struggling economy.6 However, region-to-region cooperation has been hindered by the internal fragmentation of the EU, as well as of the GCC, with Brexit and the economic and political boycott triggered by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt against Qatar in June 2017 as tipping points.7 Generally speaking, relations between individual EU member states and their GCC counterparts have been more successful but often limited

2 “Cooperation Agreement,” Official Journal of the European Communities, https:// ec.europa.eu/world/agreements/downloadFile.do?fullText=yes&treatyTransId=674. Accessed March 11, 2020. 3 A thorough examination of Europe-Gulf relations after the Arab Spring is offered in Cinzia Bianco, “A Gulf Apart: How Europe Can Gain Influence with the Gulf Cooperation Council,” European Council on Foreign Relations, February 25, 2020, https://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/a_gulf_apart_how_europe_can_gain_i nfluence_with_gulf_cooperation_council. 4 “Trade Policy: Countries and Regions,” European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/ trade/policy/countries-and-regions/regions/gulf-region/. Accessed March 13, 2020. 5 Ibid. 6 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” IAI Sharaka Papers (October 2013): 1–49, https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/Sharaka_RP_05.pdf. 7 Jeremias Kettner, “Making Sense of Europe’s Response to the Gulf Crisis,” in Divided Gulf. The Anatomy of a Crisis, ed. Andreas Krieg (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan), 251– 266.

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Table 1 Break Even Oil Price in the GCC states (in USD)

Bahrain Saudi Arabia Kuwait Oman Qatar UAE

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95.00 87.00 54.00 87.00 49.00 70.00

Source Jalilvand 2020, International Monetary Fund 2019

to ad hoc economic and commercial exchanges.8 The trade volume between the GCC countries and Germany, the EU’s largest economy, rose to some e27 billion (Euro) between 1995 and 2011.9 The same dynamic has been true for most other EU countries. This chapter argues that the economic diversification strategies that most GCC states plan to implement within the next decade, i.e., their development “Visions”, provide the opportunity to at least partially bridge this economic-political disconnect. Strengthening the EU-GCC partnership further, in this specific domain, could pave the way to launching a more comprehensive framework of relations to address upcoming socio-economic challenges facing the GCC region. Addressing these challenges, it is here argued, would be especially crucial in times of crisis for the oil market, on which the GCC countries’ economies still heavily depend. While the mismatch between a decreasing demand and increasing availability of oil is a structural trend, the shutdown of economic activities pursued to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in China, was absolutely pivotal in triggering an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia and a collapse of the oil prices to a nadir of below 25 USD per barrel, the lowest in two decades and significantly below the respective break-even prices of the GCC states (see Table 1).10

8 René

Rieger and Sebastian Sons, “Saudi-Arabiens Sicht auf deutsche Politik: Wahrnehmungen, Innenansichten, Kooperationsfelder und mögliche Partner” (in German), Unpublished Policy Brief, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Berlin, 2018. 9 Ayadi and Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations.” 10 Cinzia Bianco, “Saudi Arabia, Energy Geopolitics, and the Big Production Cut,”

European Council on Foreign Relations, April 20, 2020, https://www.ecfr.eu/article/ commentary_saudi_arabia_energy_geopolitics_and_the_big_production_cut.

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The oil prices’ crash is one of the key impacts of the spread of COVID-19 globally. The virus also demanded the deployment of financial resources towards relief and stimulus packages for national economies and of political attention towards the domain of health security. In the GCC, less liquidity is thus available for the investments required towards the implementation of the “Visions”. Some of the sectors identified as crucial in the “Visions”, i.e., tourism, have been particularly affected as travels are restricted to contain the diffusion of the pandemic. On the other hand, the oil prices’ crash has underlined the structural volatility of this commodity and the post-COVID-19 economic recession means that a return to pre-virus consumption levels is not in the cards in the short and medium terms. These two factors increase the urgency of “Vision” programmes, aimed at diversifying the GCC economies away from a pure rentier state model to a more liberalised and diversified state capitalism, focusing on sectors of the economy that are not or less dependent on energy revenues and exports. Taking into account the individual country’s specificities, this chapter unpacks the GCC “Visions” and zooms in on a European perspective and a possible EU role. Despite still existing obstacles, we argue here that European countries are well positioned to assist their GCC counterparts in their economic diversification efforts, as the EU countries retain long-standing economic engagements in the region and are among the most diversified economic systems globally.11 The chapter will delve into the specific sectors that would benefit the most from European contribution in the form of sharing best practices and joint initiatives, namely job creation and entrepreneurship, renewable energy, tourism, sport, entertainment, the tech industry, logistics and development cooperation.

The GCC and Their “Visions” It is noteworthy to highlight here that not all GCC countries have the same goals and needs in terms of economic sustainability. For some, diversification is especially urgent and vital. For others, it is a matter of long-term planning. In fact, macroeconomic indicators including current levels of economic diversification are very different across the GCC. The

11 Ayadi and Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations.”

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GCC countries most in need of diversification are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. Saudi Arabia is an oil export-reliant economic heavyweight: it has a large population of some 34 million people, the world’s 38th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, significant income disparities and has only very recently began implementing an ambitious diversification programme denominated “Vision 2030”.12 Due to the oil price crash and the implications of COVID-19, the World Bank expects a decline of GDP growth of -3.8% in 2020 in comparison with + 0.3% in 2019.13 Oman, a country largely dependent on the export of oil and natural gas, with the world’s 46th GDP per capita and a population of 4.9 million, has the region’s most critical financial situation.14 Muscat’s fiscal deficit is rising and an unprecedented 80% of the 2020 deficit is expected to be funded through foreign and domestic borrowing.15 Despite a political focus on diversification, crude exports still accounted for some 74% of the government’s 2019 revenues.16 In addition, Oman’s 2019 economic growth slowed to 0.5% while the 2020 financial outlook is negatively affected by plummeting oil prices. Finally, Bahrain is a small, relatively diversified economy but is struggling financially despite the world’s 34th largest GDP per capita and a population of only 1.6 million.17 Manama was already bailed out by fellow GCC countries in

12 Mohammad Nurunnabi, “Transformation from an Oil-Based Economy to a Knowledge-Based Economy in Saudi Arabia: The Direction of Saudi Vision 2030,” Journal of the Knowledge Economy, no. 8 (March 2017): 536–564, https://link.springer. com/article/10.1007/s13132-017-0479-8. 13 IMF Data Mapper, “Real GDP Growth Saudi Arabia,” May 2020, https://www. imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/SAU. Accessed May 25, 2020. 14 Ahmed Nawaz Hakro and Abdallah Mohammed Omezzine, “Oil Prices and Macroeconomic Dynamics of the Oman Economy,” The Journal of Developing Areas, no. 1 (2016): 1–27. 15 “Oman Vision 2040,” Oman’s Government, https://www.2040.om/en/. Accessed

March 31, 2020. 16 Karen Young, “Gulf Economic Policy Tracker,” American Enterprise Institute, September 13, 2019, https://www.aei.org/multimedia/gulf-economic-policy-tracker/. Accessed March 31, 2020. 17 Simon Mabon, “The End of the Battle for Bahrain and the Securitization of Bahraini Shi’a,” The Middle East Journal, no. 1 (2019): 29–50.

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2018 and its socio-economic underdevelopment continues to threaten internal instability.18 Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Qatar appear to have a less urgent need for diversification reforms due to their higher GDP per capita, lower poverty levels and more substantial financial reserves, including of foreign reserves.19 The UAE is an energy-dependent solid middle-sized economy, with a population below 10 million, the world’s 24th largest GDP per capita and a complex record in diversification.20 Qatar is also a solid middle size economy—Doha retains the 5th largest GDP per capita in the world—and is characterised by a small population of 2.7 million to which its huge natural gas reserves could grant prosperity for the foreseeable future.21 Kuwait, another middle size economy—its GDP per capita ranks in the world’s top 30—is characterised by a small population of 4.6 million and very large oil reserves on which the government appears to rely not to rush diversification efforts.22 After the outbreak of COVID-19, the Gulf states’ health systems proved resilient, by and large. Government measures focusing on the early adoption of restrictions and extensive testing proved largely effective. However, from an economic perspective, the “double shock” of the decline in oil prices and the outbreak of COVID-19 caused economic challenges in all GCC states but to a different extent. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain have suffered from rising unemployment rates, a decline in economic growth, reduced financial reserves and the almost complete stop of ambitious mega projects such as NEOM or the Red Sea Project in Saudi Arabia. Qatar and the UAE seem to manage the crisis better due to a high grade of economic diversification and the

18 Ibid. 19 A similar classification appears in Steffen Hertog, “Arab Gulf States: An Assessment of Nationalisation Policies,” GLMM Research Paper, 1 (2014), Migration Policy Centre. 20 Ahmed Zain Elabdin, “The Role of Diversification Strategies in the Economic Development for Oil-Depended Countries: The Case of UAE,” International Journal of Business and Economic Development, no. 1 (March 2015): 1–11. 21 Christopher Blanchard, Qatar: Background and U.S. Relations Congressional Research Service, 2011), 1–2.

(Washington:

22 Sophie Olver-Ellis, “Building the New Kuwait: Vision 2035 and the Challenge of Diversification,” LSE Middle East Centre, January 2020, 1–25, https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/ 103198/. Accessed March 31, 2020.

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availability of much larger financial reserves. Nonetheless, the crisis hit all Gulf states which indicates the negative economic growth projections of the World Bank (see Tables 2 and 3). In total, all Gulf states injected USD 97bn in stimulus packages into their domestic economies in order to safeguard jobs, social security and the health care systems. Such enormous expenditures in combination with a halt in the tourism, entertainment, logistics and aviation sectors significantly impacted the state budgets and the financial resources of all Gulf states (see Table 4). Table 2

Economic growth in the GCC states (% of GDP)

Country

2017

2018

2019a

2020b

2021b

Bahrain Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia UAE

4.3 −4.7 0.3 1.6 −0.7 0.5

1.8 1.2 1.8 1.5 2.4 1.7

1.8 0.4 0.5 −0.3 0.3 1.7

−4.5 −5.4 −4.0 −3.5 −3.8 −4.5

2.3 1.1 2.0 3.6 2.5 1.4

a Estimated b Prognosis

Source World Bank 2020

Table 3

GDP per capita in the GCC states (in USD)

Country Bahrain Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia UAE a Estimated b Prognosis

Source Quelle: IMF 2020

2017

2018

2019a

2020b

2021b

24,430 27,190 17,050 59,130 21,110 38,030

25,420 30,440 19,090 66,420 23,540 40,480

26,000 28,500 18,020 62,920 23,270 39,180

22,880 22,250 14,420 52,750 19,590 31,950

23,710 23,140 14,670 55,420 20,740 32,690

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Table 4 Official financial reserves (in billion USD)

Country

2018

2019

2020a

Bahrain Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia UAE

2.2 37.2 17.4 30.5 494.1 99.5

3.7 39.4 16.7 39.7 497.3 109.1

2.0 36.2 14.7 35.9 456.2 79.8

a Estimated

Source IMF 2020

The “Visions” The GCC “Visions” have one underlying rationale: empowering the private sector to generate jobs, growth and value to create sustainable public finances that do not depend on the extremely volatile energy market. The public sector, subsidised by energy exports’ revenues and in which most GCC nationals are currently employed, is increasingly struggling to provide opportunities for the youth.23 Most jobs that are created go to highly educated expatriates from the United States, Europe or East Asian countries or blue-collar labour migrants from South Asia, African or Arab countries.24 The private sector is in one way or another dependent on public spending rather than self-sufficient or independently generating growth.25 These are the issues that the GCC countries try to tackle in their “Visions”, by trying to attract investments and invest themselves in non-energy related economic initiatives that can provide jobs and growth in the contemporary global economy. Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification programme “Vision 2030”, initiated in 2016 and spearheaded by the Kingdom’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Sa’ud, proposes ambitious steps to diversify

23 Michiko Iwanami, “Implications of Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure

Development for Economic Diversification,” in Economic Diversification in the Gulf Region, ed. Ashraf Mishrif and Yousuf Al Balushi (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 77–95. 24 Steffen Hertog, “State and Private Sector in the GCC After the Arab Uprisings,” Journal of Arabian Studies (November 2013): 1–26. 25 Ibid.

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the economy, incentivising the growth of the private sector and transitioning employment from the public to the private sector.26 Some economic transformation-related measures have already been implemented, including pay cuts for public sector employees, the decrease of subsidies for fuel, natural gas, electricity and water and a value-added tax (VAT) of 5% on most goods and services.27 In the light of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Kingdom, the VAT has been tripled to 15%.28 The centrepiece of Mohammed bin Salman’s project is to provide additional funds for Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Public Investment Fund (PIF), which could then invest in projects and companies unrelated to oil in an effort to generate revenues for the state as well as create jobs for young Saudis.29 To that end, “Vision 2030” suggests the privatisation of at least parts of Saudi Arabia’s state assets, services and companies, including 5% of the state-owned oil giant, Aramco, and similarly of other state companies such as the Saudi Electricity Company and the National Water Company.30 Manufacturing, the mining industry, tourism, entertainment and renewable energies are among the key sectors that Riyadh aims to develop. Another “Vision 2030” priority is the “Saudization” of the job market by increasing the number of Saudi nationals in the job market and replacing migrant workers.31

26 “Vision 2030 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Saudi Arabia’s Government, https://vis ion2030.gov.sa/en. Accessed March 31, 2020. 27 “Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates Introduce VAT for First Time,” BBC,

January 1, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42508883. Accessed March 31, 2020. 28 Marwa Rashad and Davide Barbuscia, “Saudi Triples VAT Rate in Austerity Push to

Counter Oil Slump, Virus,” Reuters, May 11, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-health-coronavirus-saudi-economy/saudi-triples-vat-rate-in-austerity-push-to-counteroil-slump-virus-idUSKBN22N05M. Accessed May 25, 2020. 29 Mohammad Nurunnabi, “Transformation from an Oil-Based Economy to a Knowledge-Based Economy in Saudi Arabia: The Direction of Saudi Vision 2030,” Journal of the Knowledge Economy, no. 8 (March 2017): 536–564. 30 Mohamed A. Ramady, “The Aramco IPO: Governance, Listing, Options, and Policy Implications,” Saudi Aramco 2030 (Springer, 2018), 167–248. 31 Hend M. Alsheikh, “Current Progress in the Nationalisation Programmes in Saudi Arabia,” Explanatory Note No. 2, Gulf Labour Markets and Migration, Jeddah, Geneva, Cambridge, Gulf Research Center, 2015, https://gulfmigration.org/current-progress-inthe-nationalisation-programmes-in-saudi-arabia/.

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Bahrain’s “Economic Vision 2030” also pushes to empower the country’s private sector and to increase the sustainable use of the country’s limited resources such as land in particular.32 In order to improve the performance of its private sector, Manama encouraged the country’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt enterprise resource planning systems aimed at improving managers’ decision-making ability and the performance of employees nationwide. Oman’s “Vision 2040” seeks to ensure economic diversification amid a deteriorating economic situation. The Sultanate is keen to promote urgent investments in manufacturing, tourism, logistics and mining.33 When it comes to logistics infrastructure, Oman is already heavily investing to develop the Duqm Port and its Special Economic Zone to play a critical role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).34 Muscat is also betting heavily on the nationalisation of its labour market through “Omanization”.35 In pursuit of economic diversification and sustainable development, the UAE’s “Vision 2030” focuses on promoting some of those sectors already developed for the UAE “Vision 2021” such as mining, the manufacturing of basic metals and tourism.36 When it comes to sustainability, Abu Dhabi is committing greater resources to the development of renewable energies, a sector it has invested largely in at least since the early 2000s, when the UAE won the right to host the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and begun the building of Masdar, the first city in the world completely relying on renewable energies. The UAE also aims to

32 “Bahrain Economic Vision 2030,” Bahrain’s Government, https://www.bahrain.bh/ wps/wcm/connect/38f53f2f-9ad6-423d-9c96-2dbf17810c94/Vision%2B2030%2BEngl ish%2B%28low%2Bresolution%29.pdf?MOD=AJPERES. Accessed April 2, 2020. 33 “Oman: Economic Update—April 2019,” The World Bank, https://www.worldb ank.org/en/country/gcc/publication/oman-economic-update-april-2019. Accessed April 2, 2020. 34 Karen Young, “Gulf Economic Policy Tracker,” American Enterprise Institute, September 13, 2019, https://www.aei.org/multimedia/gulf-economic-policy-tracker/. Accessed April 2, 2020. 35 Salma Mohammed Al-Lamki, “Omanization: A Three Tier Strategic Framework for Human Resource Management and Training in the Sultanate of Oman.” Journal of Comparative International Management (2000). 36 “2021–2030,” Government of the United Arab Emirates, https://u.ae/en/more/ uae-future/2021-2030. Accessed April 2, 2020.

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increase the number of privately-owned SMEs while reducing the number of Emirati nationals employed in the public sector. This is also the main goal of Qatar’s “National Vision 2030”.37 Similar to other GCC countries, Qatar launched “Qatarization”, a process that seeks to reduce the size of the expatriate labour force, while increasing the number of Qatari nationals employed in both the public and private sectors to 50%. In addition to the crucial question of replacing the expatriate labour force with local workforce, the “Vision” addresses four more major challenges, including how to modernise the country while preserving traditions, achieve a managed and stable growth, work on societal and human development and finally focus more on environmental protection. Like fellow GCC countries, Kuwait is also planning to reduce employment in its massive public sector and incentivise the growth of the private sector. Kuwait’s economy is solid. However, 95% of exports and approximately 90% of government revenue are tied to oil.38 The “New Kuwait Vision 2035” represents a second attempt by the government to transform Kuwait into a regional financial and commercial hub for the northern Gulf after a similar plan was shelved in 2011.39 By supporting smart technologies and Islamic finance, Kuwait’s government is focusing to develop these two sectors in particular.

The Role of the EU This quick overview of the GCC “Visions” highlights their key goal, namely job creation, especially in the private sector and through entrepreneurship and particularly in specific sectors, considered to hold the greatest potential. Demographic trends as well as the implications of COVID-19 exert tremendous pressure on the respective job markets: young nationals cannot be absorbed anymore in the public sector as it was the case in the past. Thus, all GCC countries are in dire need

37 “Qatar National Vision 2030,” Qatar’s Government Communications Office, https://

www.gco.gov.qa/en/about-qatar/national-vision2030/. Accessed March 31, 2020. 38 Manal Shehabi. “Diversification in Gulf Hydrocarbon Economies and Interactions with Energy Subsidy Reform: Lessons from Kuwait,” PhD Dissertation, University of Exeter, 2019. 39 “Kuwait Vision 2035,” New Kuwait Summit, https://newkuwaitsummit.com/. Accessed March 31, 2020.

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of creating jobs in the private sector by offering better job opportunities for young nationals. So far, working in the private sector was less attractive than finding a job in the public sector which normally pays higher salaries, offers family-friendly working hours and is less competitive. Therefore, especially the service and construction sectors are still dominated by labour migrants. Despite the fact that the respective educational systems have been tremendously improved, the gap between the needs of the private job market and the abilities national graduates are able to offer often do not fit with one another.40 Against this backdrop, reforming and transforming the job markets was, is and will be key for all the GCC economies. In this regard, the EU is well-placed to play a substantial role in all these accounts and sectors. Job Creation and Entrepreneurship The EU already has experience with job creation and entrepreneurship initiatives in the MENA region. For instance, the 2013 Brusselspromoted Mediterranean Initiative for Jobs (Med4Jobs) focused on private sector job creation by working on enhancing employability among graduates, fostering an entrepreneurial culture, closing the gap between labour demand and supply and facilitating the business of SMEs.41 EU institutions, chiefly the European Commission (EC), could play a key role in coordinating the sharing of know-how to the GCC counterparts, both at the level of the GCC as an institution and at the level of individual governments, especially when it comes to supporting and fostering economic diversification. All GCC diversification strategies have the declared goal of empowering and stimulating entrepreneurship in the private sector, and, as recently as 2016, the EC developed the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (ECF) in order to enhance the entrepreneurial capacity of

40 See chapter on education and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the GCC by Hanaa Almoaibed in this volume. 41 Cinzia Bianco, “EU-GCC Cooperation in an Era of Socio-Economic Challenges,” IAI Sharaka Papers, February 2014, 1–22, https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/Sha raka_RP_08.pdf.

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European citizens and organisations across the EU member states.42 The framework attempts to establish a bridge between education institutions and businesses and would ideally constitute a basis for the development of curricula and learning activities fostering entrepreneurship as a key competence. In times of COVID-19, such cooperation formats could serve as an additional stimulus to engage young Gulf nationals into the private sector and foster the nationalisation of job markets which has become even more urgent than before after the outbreak of the pandemic. This EC-promoted framework could be of great interest for all those GCC countries that aim to establish a more vibrant private sector and reduce the current gap between the skills required by private businesses and the ones acquired by GCC nationals in higher education. Arguably, this could be particularly useful for Saudi Arabia and Oman, as both urgently attempt to cut jobs in the public sector and encourage their youth to seek employment in the private sector. The EU could further support the GCC countries by assisting to develop enabling infrastructure that can foster newly established SMEs, such as incubators and mentoring and coaching programmes. A specific feature of the GCC region in this regard is the tradition of public-private partnership in the management of economic affairs.43 This can pose significant obstacles to the development of a truly autonomous private sector. However, given there is sufficient political will, it can also to some extent speed up the exchange of best practices and lessons learnt between public stakeholders, such as authorities or universities, and private sector companies. Lastly, some of the EU’s economic heavyweights, such as Germany, France and Italy are excellent examples of diversified economies in which a number of SMEs have succeeded in an increasingly competitive and liberalised context. Emerging private sector companies across the GCC could be buddied up with EU counterparts to learn from their experience.

42 European Commission, “EntreComp: The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework,” https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-rep orts/entrecomp-entrepreneurship-competence-framework. Accessed April 2, 2020. 43 Iwanami, “Implications of Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure Development for Economic Diversification.”

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Renewable Energy Another sector in which European contribution can have a substantial impact—perhaps more from individual countries with a coordinating EU role—is the expansion of largely untapped sectors that are the focus of most “Vision” strategies. Renewable energy is a case in point. Given the substantial industrial capacity and degree of innovation displayed by EU companies in the field, these can be of interest for partners in the GCC countries.44 EU efforts in this sector have been recently underscored by the Green New Deal, promoted by the European Commission, and the establishment of ad hoc organisations such as the European Wind Energy Association in Belgium and the Greece-based Centre for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES). Already in 2017, some 13.6% of the total energy produced in the EU-28 came from renewable sources.45 Moreover, EU countries such as Denmark and Germany are considered to be pioneers in the field of alternative energy. In this regard, the interest in the GCC countries is also growing: Bahrain was the first GCC state to consider energy efficiency strategies as a way of meeting local energy needs amid the accelerated depletion of its indigenous hydrocarbon reserves.46 In the UAE, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Solar Park—expected to generate some 5,000 megawatts annually by 2030—was a major initial step for such strategy and the Spanish company Grupo-TSK played a key role in the construction of the complex.47 The Qatar Development Bank formed a joint venture with Germany’s SolarWorld to establish Qatar Solar Technologies (QSTec) and, as recently as January 2020, Doha signed a deal with France’s Total to build Qatar’s Al-Kharsaah solar power plant that will be capable of producing 800 megawatts once it is 44 Abdulaziz Al-Shalabi, Nicolas Cottret, and Emanuela Menichetti, “EU-GCC Coop-

eration on Energy: Technical Report,” IAI Sharaka Papers, June 2013, 1–85, https:// www.iai.it/sites/default/files/Sharaka_RP_03.pdf. 45 Eurostat, “Calculation Methodologies for the Share of Renewables in Energy Consumption,” https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Calcul ation_methodologies_for_the_share_of_renewables_in_energy_consumption#Total_energy_ supply. Accessed April 3, 2020. 46 Yaghoob Jafari, Mohd Adib Ismail, Jamal Othman, and Murni Yunus Mawar, “Energy Consumption, Emissions and Economic Growth in Bahrain,” Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment, no. 4 (September 2015): 297–308. 47 TSK, “TSK Launches One of the Largest Solar Plants in the World,” https://en.gru potsk.com/noticias/tsk-pone-en-marcha-una-de-las-mayores-plantas-solares-del-mundo. Accessed April 2, 2020.

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completed in 2022.48 The entire region retains an enormous solar power potential, and EU-based actors have acquired world-leading technological expertise to be leading partners. As the “double shock” has again demonstrated the Gulf states’ need for energy diversification, renewable energies and green energy will become an even more relevant priority in all Gulf states. During the G20 presidency of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom has expressed its dire will to engage even more in energy diversification by supporting technological advancement in hydrogen, solar energy and energy efficiency and by promoting the so-called circular carbon economy.49 In this regard, the German development cooperation agency GIZ is planning to develop specific projects and events together with Saudi Arabia on climate change and environmental issues such as energy efficiency. Tourism, Sports, Entertainment Another key sector to explore is tourism. Inspired by the positive experience of Dubai, other GCC countries such as Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and even Saudi Arabia, which was traditionally focusing only on religious tourism, aim to expand their tourism sector as a way to attract foreign direct investments (FDIs), generate more revenues and create jobs. This was recently underscored by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar’s decision to relax visa requirements for EU, UK and US citizens among others.50 Most notably, Saudi Arabia’s efforts to promote its cultural heritage and attract tourism in the Kingdom, as envisioned by “Vision 2030”, were highlighted by Riyadh’s recent creation of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Tourism.51 While megaprojects, such as the Red Sea 48 Total, “Total to Develop Qatar’s First Large-Scale (800 MWp) Solar Plant,” https://www.total.com/en/media/news/press-releases/total-develop-qatars-firstlarge-scale-800-mwp-solar-plant. Accessed April 3, 2020. 49 T20, “T20 Statement on the Circular Carbon Economy,” 2020, https://t20saudia rabia.org.sa/en/news/Documents/CCE_Statement.pdf 50 Frank Gardner, “Saudi Arabia to Open Up to Foreign Tourists with New Visas,” BBC, September 27, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49848068. Accessed April 2, 2020. 51 Stephen Kalin, “Saudi Ex-energy Minister Bounces Back as Investment Chief,” Reuters, February 25, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-cabinet/saudiex-energy-minister-bounces-back-as-investment-chief-idUSKBN20J232. Accessed April 2, 2020.

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Project, can effectively support leisure tourism on the Kingdom’s Red Sea coast, plans to promote cultural tourism are currently proceeding with the promotion of folklore through, for instance, the establishment of the AlJanadriyya festival, the rehabilitation of the archaeological Nabatean site of Mada’in Saleh—which Saudi Arabia is currently developing in cooperation with France—and the old city of Jeddah among other historical sites.52 Several EU countries such as France, Italy and Spain are characterised by a thriving tourism sector—both leisure and cultural—which their GCC counterparts could take example and acquire expertise from. In fact, France, Spain and Italy are stably ranked in the top 5 world’s tourism destinations: in 2018, France was first with 89.4 million tourists, Spain second (82.8 million) and Italy fifth (62.1 million).53 The ability to attract such numbers of visitors and manage flows properly would be of great interest to the GCC countries. To date, Oman is the GCC country that has most benefitted from an expanding tourism sector. In 2018, the number of tourists visiting the Sultanate exceeded 3 million for the first time, it reached 3.4 million in 2019 and was expected to increase further in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.54 The number of hotels also grew by some 12.3% in 2018 alone.55 Oman is keen to ensure Brussels’s engagement to increase the sector’s potential and the 2018 EU-Oman bilateral cooperation arrangement specifically calls for EU cooperation to support the development of Muscat’s tourism sector accompanying Oman’s Vision 2040.56 The entertainment industry, which is already strong in the UAE, has the potential to further develop in parallel with the increasing number of tourists visiting the GCC region. The success stories of major Emirati 52 Sylvia Smith, “Uncovering Secrets of Mystery Civilization in Saudi Arabia,” BBC, October 3, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49424036. Accessed April 2, 2020. 53 The World Bank, “International Tourism, Number of Arrivals,” https://data.worldb ank.org/indicator/ST.INT.ARVL?view=map. Accessed April 3, 2020. 54 Karen Young, “Gulf Economic Policy Tracker,” American Enterprise Institute,

September 13, 2019, https://www.aei.org/multimedia/gulf-economic-policy-tracker/. Accessed April 2, 2020. 55 Ibid. 56 European Union External Action, “The EU and Oman Hold Their First Senior Officials’ Meeting,” https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/67626/ node/67626_my. Accessed April 4, 2020.

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entertainment projects such as Dubai’s Dubailand and the Ferrari-themed park in Abu Dhabi, inspired Riyadh’s entertainment planning. In 2019, Saudi Arabia launched the Qiddiya entertainment megaproject featuring resorts and parks that is expected to be inaugurated in 2023. The Qiddiya project presents opportunities for construction, design and entertainment businesses across the EU. Finally, in recent years, Gulf states have acknowledged the importance of sport activities for their nationals, in order to improve physical conditions and decrease diseases of civilisation such as diabetes or obesity. Therefore, a thriving sports business sector has emerged in all Gulf countries that offers new opportunities for investment and cooperation. The highlight of this development is the FIFA World Cup that is planned to take place in Qatar in 2022. In organisational preparation and infrastructural construction, European partners are heavily involved. Against this backdrop, European countries could play an even stronger role in promoting sport as a daily-life activity by the education of sports teachers, the development of awareness-raising campaigns for sports-interested Gulf nationals, the investment in gyms and fitness facilities, the organisation of running festivals or youth football tournaments.57 Of course, the industries of tourism and entertainment will be particularly hit by COVID-19. Megaprojects could be put into question or downsized. Projects based on economies of scale will have to be reconsidered. This will be true for both the GCC and the EU. However, arguably, these critical challenges will strengthen rather than weaken the case for increased international cooperation in thinking how to cope with and adapt to the new realities while salvaging these industries at the same time. The Tech Industry Another crucial domain to focus on is the tech industry, a sector the GCC countries are keen to develop and in which a number of EU countries have an established expertise. All GCC countries aim to facilitate the establishment of tech start-ups with financed mentoring programmes,

57 Simon Chadwick, “The Business of Sports in the Gulf Cooperation Council Member States,” in Sports, Politics, and Society in the Middle East, ed. Danyel Reiche and Tamir Sorek (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 183–204; Mahfoud Amara, Sport, Politics and Society in the Arab World (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 94–114.

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dedicated events and policy frameworks.58 Tech start-ups are flourishing throughout Europe, with particularly attractive environments in France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. Long-standing financial hubs of the GCC, such as Manama and Dubai, are attempting to evolve into regional centres for financial technologies (fintech). In Europe, established financial hubs such as London and Amsterdam have already embraced fintech and developed into world leading poles. The tech industry is perhaps the only one coming out of the COVID-19 crisis as relatively unscathed and, to a certain extent, bolstered. This should present more accessible and rewarding opportunities to push ahead with ventures in the sector. Logistics All the GCC countries have tremendously intensified their efforts, often in competition, to position themselves as logistical hubs in order to diversify their economies, attract FDIs and reach out to new markets in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. In recent decades, small Gulf states such as Qatar and the UAE have developed fully-fledged container ports and airports. Both are heavily relying on open regional transit routes and emerging logistical partnerships with booming markets such as India or China as shown by the Gulf’s rising integration into China’s BRI and its Maritime Strategy.59 Saudi Arabia also seeks to foster its role as a logistical hub by investing in its port, rail and air infrastructure including the Jeddah Port.60

58 Sophie Olver-Ellis, “Building the New Kuwait: Vision 2035 and the Challenge of Diversification,” LSE Middle East Centre, January 2020, 1–25. 59 K. M. Seethi, “India and the Emerging Gulf: Between ‘Strategic Balancing’ and ‘Soft Power’ Options,” in Asia-Gulf Economic Relations in the 21st Century: The Local to Global Transformation, ed. Tim Niblock and Monica Malik (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2013), 147– 170; Girijesh Pant, “Situating the Gulf in India’s Engagement with Emerging Asia,” in Asia-Gulf Economic Relations in the 21st Century: The Local to Global Transformation, ed. Tim Niblock and Monica Malik (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2013), 123–146; Xuming Qian and Jonathan Fulton, “China-Gulf Economic Relationship Under the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative,” Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 11, no. 3 (2017): 12–21; Julia Gurol and Parisa Shahmohammadi, “Projecting Power Westwards. China’s Maritime Strategy in the Arabian Sea and Its Potential Ramifications for the Region,” CARPO Study 7 , November 11, 2019, https://carpo-bonn.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ carpo_study_07_Cover.jpg. 60 Alsharq Alawsat, “Saudi Arabia: $2.4 Bn Contracts to Develop Jeddah Islamic Port,” December 24, 2019, https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2050716/saudi-arabia24-bn-contracts-develop-jeddah-islamic-port.

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Such competition can also be witnessed in the GCC countries’ logistical engagement in Sub-Saharan countries and the Horn of Africa: the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not only accelerating their competition for political and security influence in this region but are also looking for new investment opportunities in the respective ports, energy and consumer markets “as gateways to rapid economic expansion across the continent”.61 By becoming second-largest investor in Africa, the UAE has invested around USD 11 billion in 2016. For example, Dubai Ports World (DP World) signed its first agreement with Djibouti in 2006 in order to develop its Doraleh port and is cooperating with China in the BRI. DP World announced an initial USD 50 million investment in Mali in July 2018, complementing larger infrastructure investments in West Africa such as the Dakar port and economic zone.62 While under political boycott and economic embargo since 2017, Qatar started to reach out to invest in Africa in order to establish new partnerships and investment opportunities. In this regard, Doha signed a USD 4 billion deal in order to manage the Suakin Red Sea port with Sudan in March 2018.63 Europe and the Gulf countries could foster closer cooperation in terms of logistics and trade. Europe has a vibrant interest in economically stabilising Sub-Saharan African countries by fostering trade, investment and logistical ties, creating jobs and mitigating irregular migration threats. Thus, mutual interests with the GCC countries can be identified. However, the assertive and competitive character of the latter’s engagement in the Horn of Africa needs to be taken into consideration and has to be addressed politically in preparation of joint economic projects.

61 Taimur Khan, “Gulf Strategic Interests Reshaping the Horn of Africa,” Issue Paper #6, Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, November 26, 2018, https://agsiw.org/ gulf-strategic-interests-reshaping-the-horn-of-africa/; International Crisis Group, “IntraGulf Competition in Africa’s Horn: Lessening the Impact,” Middle East Report No. 206, September 19, 2019, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-ara bian-peninsula/206-intra-gulf-competition-africas-horn-lessening-impact. 62 Will Todman, “The Gulf Scramble for Africa. GCC States’ Foreign Policy Laboratory,” CSIS Briefs, November 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/gulf-scramble-africagcc-states-foreign-policy-laboratory. 63 Reuters, “Sudan, Qatar to Sign $4 Billion Deal to Manage Red Sea port – Ministry,” March 26, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-qatar/sudan-qatar-to-sign-4billion-deal-to-manage-red-sea-port-ministry-idUSKBN1H22WH.

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Development Cooperation: Prospects for an EU-GCC Triangulation Most of the GCC states have been extremely active in their engagement in development cooperation and humanitarian aid. In recent decades, more than 75% of all non-official development assistance (ODA) was pledged and disbursed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. The GCC countries spent a significant share of more than 1% of their GDP on ODA. Against this backdrop, new avenues of EU-GCC cooperation in the field of development cooperation could be identified. But so far, this potential remains untapped. By engaging intensively in development cooperation and humanitarian aid, Arab donors—including the GCC countries—are following several political, economic and security-related interests. Those interests have to be taken into consideration before identifying potential fields of cooperation: first and foremost, they aspire to gain recognition as global actors in international development cooperation and as role models in SouthSouth Cooperation (SSC).64 Therefore, all donors aim to align more closely with OECD-Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) standards and to join pertinent coordination mechanisms. This is shown by Saudi Arabia (since 2018), the UAE (since 2014), Qatar (since 2016) and Kuwait (since 2018) that have become participants to the OECDDAC and have started to provide data and statistics about their ODA.65 Furthermore, ODA is considered by all Arab donors as an indicator of economic, religious and social solidarity in times of increasing welfare gaps, aiming to eradicate poverty. For instance, Saudi Arabia presents itself as a generous donor in order to fulfil its religious obligations as the “Custodian of the two Holy Shrines”.66 The GCC countries also 64 R. S. Porter, “Arab Economic Aid,” Development Policy Review 4, no. 1 (1986): 44–68. 65 See on Saudi Arabia: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b2156c99-en/index.html? itemId=/content/component/b2156c99-en. See on the UAE: https://www.oecd.org/ dac/dac-global-relations/uae-participant-dac.htm. See on Qatar: https://www.oecd.org/ dac/dac-global-relations/qatar-participant-dac.htm. See on Kuwait: https://www.oecd. org/countries/kuwait/kuwait-participant-dac.htm. All accessed on May 25, 2020. 66 Sultan Barakat and Steven A. Zyck, Gulf State Assistance to Conflict-Affected Environments (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2010); Eva Weidnitzer, Entwicklungszusammenarbeit arabischer Geber. Ziele, Organisation, Instrumente (Berichte und Gutachten) (Bonn: German Development Institute, 1995 [in German]).

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follow political interests by instrumentalising ODA and humanitarian aid. In times of regional destabilisation, financial support is often provided to close partners with the side goal of preventing political turmoil in those countries. This became obvious in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Uprisings when Saudi Arabia and the UAE financially and economically pushed for the coup d’ètat by General Abd al-Fattah Al-Sisi against the pro-Islamist new Egyptian government of Muhammad Mursi, which was heavily supported by Qatar.67 By the same logic, the GCC provided budget support to Morocco and Jordan with a volume of 5 billion USD each.68 Finally, the GCC countries see accessing new markets in Asia and Africa as crucial to diversify their economies and achieve food security by striking deals in the agricultural sectors. In recent decades, the focus of the Gulf donors’ support has been on infrastructure, transport and socio-economic development projects but also on health, education and energy. After the “Arab Uprisings”, the GCC donors are more interested in creating new job opportunities in the private sector in the beneficiary countries in order to deal with rising social frustration caused by high youth unemployment. Humanitarian aid to war-torn countries also plays a significant role in the portfolio of the GCC donors by providing large aid packages to Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine, including to host refugees. In this regard, relevant state agencies are cooperating closely together with UN organisations such as UNHCR, UNRWA or WHO, or bilaterally with organisations such as the UK-based Department for International Development (DFID) or the US development agency USAID.69

67 Sebastian Sons and Inken Wiese, “The Engagement of Arab Gulf States in Egypt and Tunisia since 2011. Rationale and Impact,” DGAP Analyse Nr. 9, Berlin, German Council on Foreign Relations, 2015, https://dgap.org/en/think-tank/publications/dgapanalyse/ engagement-arab-gulf-states-egypt-and-tunisia-2011; Sebastian Sons, “Saudi Arabia’s and Egypt’s Strategic Relationship: Continuities and Transformations After King Abdullah’s Death,” in Egypt and the Gulf: A Renewed Regional Policy Alliance, ed. Robert Mason (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2017), 89–103. 68 Mustapha Rouis, “Response of the Arab Donors to the Global Financial Crisis and the Arab Spring,” Quick Notes Series No. 112, World Bank, December 2013, https://sit eresources.worldbank.org/INTMENA/Resources/QN112.pdf. 69 Peter Carroll and William Hynes, “Engaging with Arab Aid Donors. The DAC Experience,” IIIS Discussion Paper, 2013, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abs tract_id=2267136.

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Gulf donors are aiming to improve coordination in terms of project implementation, financing mechanisms, monitoring and evaluation, exchange of information and data as well as harmonisation of different institutional approaches. In this regard, donor institutions in the GCC countries are undergoing fundamental transformation processes. In addition to governmental organisations, numerous NGOs and welfare organisations funded by business tycoons or members of the respective ruling families have emerged recently. Those institutions are aiming to support entrepreneurship, academic research, SMEs and other private businesses by providing vocational training, training equipment or capacity development. They are further engaged in primary school education, developing curricula, providing technical devices, offering online education and scholarships. So far, cooperation with the GCC donors at a multilateral European level has remained limited. From a Gulf viewpoint, the critical European perspective on human and labour rights, the strong opposition against the war in Yemen and arms sales to the Gulf countries have resulted in spreading mistrust. Furthermore, the EU is sometimes considered a weak and ineffective institution that is struggling more with internal cleavages, such as Brexit, than fostering dialogue with the GCC. In Europe, Gulf donors’ engagement is still considered mostly religious-motivated and aimed at spreading intolerant versions of Sunni Islam through non-transparent and dubious Islamic charities, closely linked to militant movements. The negative reputation of specific charities such as Qatar Charity, accused of funding Islamists in Europe, also limits the political will for cooperation.70 Also, lack of transparency, an opaque decisionmaking system and the strong dependence of development cooperation on the whims of political leadership all add to concerns in Europe. These three factors have projected considerable volatility on the volume of GCC ODA over the years.71 Such ups and downs create concerns on the European side about the sustainability of GCC aid and the potential to move away from ad hoc humanitarian donation towards

70 Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, Qatar Papers. Comment l’émirat Finance l’Islam de France et d’Europe (Neuilly-sur-Seine: Éditions Michel Lafo, 2019). 71 Debra Shushan and Christopher Marcoux, “The Rise (and Fall?) of Arab Aid: Generosity and Allocation in the Oil Era,” World Development 39, no. 11 (2011): 1969–1980.

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long-term, technical support. Following COVID-19, the GCC countries have largely channelled their financial support nationally in order to support the domestic economies with large stimulus packages, instead of providing ODA. Furthermore, in times of decreasing state revenues, the Gulf states’ development cooperation and humanitarian aid efforts will largely focus on countries and regions with significant geostrategic relevance whereas support to other regions is likely to decrease. For instance, Saudi Arabia will continue to provide humanitarian aid to Yemen due to the Southern neighbour’s importance in terms of security and regional stability. Against this backdrop, the Gulf states’ ODA share is likely to decrease, hampering the potential for increased EU-GCC cooperation. However, that potential is still real. Both GCC donors and the European Union are interested in several hot topics such as migration, environmental issues, education and vocational training, job creation and stabilisation of crisis-torn countries in the MENA region and Africa. In times of COVID-19, joint project implementation in the health provision, migration management or job creation in fragile countries in Africa and Asia can offer new opportunities for cooperation on a trilateral level. Especially multilateral Arab donor organisation such as the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) or the AGFUND are increasingly initiating projects entailing medium- and long-term measures. In this context, supporting SMEs—and the private sector more generally—appears to be a major focal point for most Arab donors and could offer interesting options for cooperation. While concerns about the opaque activities of Islamic charities and welfare organisations may be legitimate, it cannot be denied that regional governments have already introduced strict legislation in order to better control funding to partners and private donations to Islamic charities.72 In addition, they report better to international organisations such as the

72 Habeeba Hamid, “Overseas Development Assistance from the UAE. Structuring Donor Relations in the Context of the Arab League’s Fragile States,” Working Paper Series, Dubai 2009; Véronique d. Geoffroy and Alain Robyns, “Les bailleurs émergents de l’aide humanitaire. Le cas des pays du Golfe,” Humanitaires en Mouvement. Lettre d’information, no. 3 (2009): 2–3; Marie J. Petersen, “Islamizing Aid. Transnational Muslim NGOs After 9.11.,” Voluntas 23 no. 1 (2011): 126–155; Sigrid Faath, ed., Islamische Stiftungen und wohltätige Einrichtungen mit entwicklungspolitischen Zielsetzungen in arabischen Staaten (Hamburg 2003 [in German]).

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OECD.73 More and more Gulf donors are acting also as implementers and developers. Therefore, the clear distinction lines between funding and implementation are becoming blurred and joint cooperation in technical assistance is likely to become more relevant in the future. One main topic of Gulf donors’ engagement has been the Syrian refugee crisis in host communities such as Jordan.74 Here, it is crucial that the EU and the GCC countries harmonise the efforts taken and develop a coherent strategy on how to deal with refugees in host communities in terms of vocational training and employment. New windows of opportunity on a trilateral level in pooling development cooperation efforts could also emerge due to the normalisation of relations in August and September 2020 between Bahrain and the UAE on the one hand and Israel on the other hand.

Conclusion and Outlook As this chapter shows, the GCC countries are in a period of tremendous socio-economic transformation due to the limits of the traditional rentier state system that seems on the brink. Against this backdrop, all the GCC countries have introduced ambitious “Visions” to seek economic diversification, liberalisation and privatisation, to foster “nationalisation” of their respective job markets and create more job opportunities for the young generation of nationals. In this regard, sectors such as entrepreneurship, renewable energy, tourism, sport, entertainment, the tech industry, logistics and development cooperation have been promoted. It is aimed in all GCC countries to invest in those sectors in order to overcome the domestic challenges, decrease youth unemployment and thus stabilise the legitimacy of the respective political leaderships. Despite those challenges of the GCC countries, potential for EU-GCC cooperation still remains untapped due to the lacking comprehensive structured approach of the EU towards the region and the focus on bilateral agreements in recent decades. However, several fields of mutual interest can be identified. Leveraging their added values, European actors 73 Mohammed R. Kroessin, “Islamic Charities and the ‘War on Terror’. Dispelling the Myths,” Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 38, 2007, https://www.odihpn.org/humani tarian-exchange-magazine/issue-38. 74 UNHCR, “Gulf Donors and NGOs Assistance to Syrian Refugees in Jordan,” June 2014, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/GULFreportdesign14.pdf.

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should present concrete ideas and precise business models to their GCC partners. Joint projects in energy and climate, job creation and youth empowerment, tourism and entertainment, education and development cooperation could all accelerate in the future. European countries are well positioned to cooperate with the GCC countries by supporting their economic diversification efforts. The EU can therefore play an important role by developing sustainable post-oil Gulf economies. Both sides are highly focusing on several topics of joint interest such as migration, environmental issues, education and vocational training, job creation and stabilisation of crisis-torn countries in the MENA region and Africa. Nonetheless, some challenges remain: first and foremost, it is of utmost importance to spread reliable information about the EU in the GCC in order to tackle stereotypes and clichés currently hindering closer cooperation. There is still considerable confusion about the nature, mandates and capabilities of the EU in the region, while many locals are influenced by media narratives about rising Islamophobia, xenophobia and racism in Europe. A better understanding of the EU in its complexity is necessary to dispel misplaced expectations and overcome negative biases. In addition, the global health crisis and economic recession caused by COVID-19 will strongly affect both Europe and the Gulf.75 In spite of all the challenges, as examined in this chapter, new windows of opportunities could emerge. For the GCC countries, especially for the less-diversified economies, the recovery from COVID-19 will be a tightrope act. On the one hand, they need to secure their public sectors in order to avoid high unemployment. On the other hand, investments in the private sector need to be preserved in order to foster diversification. In this regard, Europe could play a relevant role, by doubling down on cooperation in the spaces where it retains competitive advantages. Those include fostering entrepreneurship and job creation by offering opportunities for education and vocational training, establishing exchange formats to link start-ups together or provide capacity development programmes. Instead of focusing only on well-established “big

75 Rabah Arezki and Ha Nguyen, “Coping with a Dual Shock: COVID-19 and

Oil Prices,” The World Bank, April 14, 2020, https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/ mena/brief/coping-with-a-dual-shock-coronavirus-covid-19-and-oil-prices; Eman Alhussein, “The Coronavirus Redefines Responsibility in the Gulf,” The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, March 25, 2020, https://agsiw.org/the-coronavirus-redefinesresponsibility-in-the-gulf/.

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players”, the EU should foster new formats to bring in smaller actors from the private sector. This offers prospects for different sectors including energy, culture, tourism, entertainment, sports, tech and logistics. Fewer resources available should encourage pooling, streamlining, harmonising to the detriment of competitive duplication both in relations between Europe and the GCC countries and in their triangulation in other regions through development cooperation.

Navigating the New Era: Energy and Environmental Considerations in EU-GCC Relations Steven Wright

A striking feature of the European relationship with both the Arab Gulf states and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is that it rests on a longstanding historical pedigree between European powers and the rulers of the Gulf region. This relationship dates back more than five centuries when Portugal first established a strategic position in Yemen’s Socotra Island in 1507, which later extended to Hormuz Island, Muscat and Bahrain. Just over 300 years later, Great Britain established a political residency on Iran’s Qeshm Island in 1820, which later extended throughout the Gulf region. Its presence became interwoven with the emergence of the modern state system of the Arab Gulf states. While deeply-rooted historical linkages have existed, the modern relationship the Gulf enjoys with the European Union (EU) and its member states has developed incrementally and mostly through bilateral relationships between states.1 1 Gerd Nonneman, “EU-GCC Relations: Dynamics, Patterns and Perspectives,” The International Spectator 41, no. 3 (2006): 59–74.

S. Wright (B) College Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_6

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Indeed, while the EU can trace its formation back to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) through the Treaty of Rome in 1958, the GCC is a more recent endeavour and was established in 1981. Shortly afterwards, in 1983, a framework cooperative agreement was concluded in 1986, which led to the formal onset of negotiations between the two regional organizations.2 However, it was not until 1989 that the EEC-GCC Cooperation Agreement came into force, which laid the foundation for a subsequent three decades of relations.3 Given this, it is appropriate to take stock of how the contemporary dynamics in the EUGCC relationship have evolved and consider the prospects of the bilateral trade in energy. The relationship between the GCC and the EU has evolved to be one that is both extensive and strategic. The EU has relevance for the GCC in that it is one of its largest trading partners, yet this relationship has been beset with issues relating to a free trade agreement being concluded.4 Indeed, the relationship cannot be viewed as having met its full potential.5 However, it is essential at this juncture to appreciate the significance of the energy sector to the relationship. To provide context for the relationship, by 2019 the largest total trading partner for the GCC was China at 16.8%.6 The EU-27 followed this at 13.7%, India at 9.8% and Japan at 8.7%. The total EU-27 trading relationship with the GCC amounted to e129 billion by 2019, with around 30% of this being imports to the EU. The composition of these imports from the GCC was predominantly in the oil, gas and petrochemical sector, as 74% were in mineral products. In the context of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the relationship arguably faces additional challenges in that severe disruption to global trade, economic growth, travel and acute security issues are

2 Henner Fürtig, “GCC-EU Political Cooperation: Myth or Reality?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 1 (2004): 26–27. 3 Abdulla Baabood, “Dynamics and Determinants of the GCC States’ Foreign Policy, with Special Reference to the EU,” The Review of International Affairs 3, no. 2 (2003). 4 Katharina Luise Meissner, “Leveraging Interregionalism: EU Strategic Interests in Asia,

Latin America and the Gulf Region,” International Politics 56, no. 3 (2019). 5 Silvia Colombo and Camilla Committeri, “Need to Rethink the EU-GCC Strategic Relation,” in Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads, ed. Silvia Colombo (Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014). 6 European Commission, European Union, Trade in Goods with GCC (Brussels: European Commission, 2020).

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being aggravated further by a public health pandemic. While there are various pillars to the EU-GCC relationship, several of which are engaged within this volume, one of the central aspects of this relationship concerns the trade in energy in addition to environmental considerations. Collectively, the GCC states constitute the largest export market of oil and liquefied natural gas globally; on a strategic level, the Gulf region has considerable geopolitical weight given how it contributes to energy security calculations for many countries. With the EU adopting the European Green Deal in 2020, which envisages a climate-neutral energy strategy, consideration is needed here on how the GCC and its member states will navigate this new landscape in addition to the broader changes that have taken place in the global energy market. In the light of this, this chapter’s central argument is that it would be in the immediate and longer-term interests of both the EU and the GCC to expand their energy trading relationship as part of a diversification strategy. In the near term, diversification is in both their interests. It has been a long-standing interest for the EU to lessen imports from Russia, and the majority of GCC oil and gas exports are focused on the East Asian market. Interregional trade between the GCC and the EU will be in the interests of both. Longerterm, the EU’s carbon–neutral strategy is a sector in which both regions could cooperate. The GCC states would be wise to invest their research and development capacities in this sector in collaboration with the EU, given the long-term trend for energy being increasingly sourced from non-fossil fuels. Therefore, this chapter seeks to discuss these dynamics and offer some observations on ways in which further collaboration could be achieved. In order to do this, this chapter will firstly engage with the European policy and strategic context, before moving onto an analysis of the GCC-EU energy trading relationship and the geopolitical context of the global energy market.

The Evolution of an EU Energy and Climate Policy Agenda A distinguishing feature of the EU is that it is a hybrid mix of both an international organization and a state, yet, as a federal union, it is also neither. The implication of this for energy security and engagement on climate issues requires a clear understanding of what the prerogatives are of the member states and the EU. For this to be achieved and in order to locate the context that the GCC has in its engagement with the EU,

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it is necessary to engage here with the historical backdrop to how European strategy, policy and legislation concerning energy has evolved. It is clear that energy has been at the heart of the foundation of European federation since the Treaty of Paris in 1951, which established the European Coal and Steel Community and, later, the European Atomic Energy Community of 1958. Although the EU has a long-standing engagement in such matters, it is noteworthy that it is only since the 1990s, that more significant reforms to its internal energy market have taken place. The reforms that were progressively implemented from 1996 sought to liberalize the internal energy market and harmonize how access, transparency, consumer protection and regulation are implemented, and to ensure the maintenance of adequate supply levels. It is the issues relating to supply, however, which had the most evident impact on how the EU and its member states were to engage internationally and with energy-exporting regions such as the GCC. A vital aspect of these reforms included the development of a trans-European network for transporting electricity and gas; hence this proved to be the impetus behind the development of pan-European distribution terminals.7 While initial reforms were implemented since the 1990s, the contemporary EU energy security strategy can be understood to have its foundations in the European Commission’s (EC’s) 2000 Green Paper A European strategy for the security of energy supply. At the time the paper was initiated, around 50% of the EU’s energy requirements came from imports, and it was motivated by the concern that without sustained investment and energy efficiency savings, the share of imports would rise to 70% of the EU’s energy requirements by 2030. The 2000 Green Paper underlined a degree of urgency given that energy insecurity was facing the EU as a fossil fuel-dependent region. Although the reliance on energy imports was viewed with concern, it nevertheless located the EU as progressively having to adjust as an importing region whereby it was sourcing increasingly higher proportions of its energy from outside its common borders. Despite the concern raised over an increased reliance on imports to cater to energy needs, it is appropriate at this juncture to question the underlying principle of the concerns and how it related to the concept of energy security. As a concept, energy security can be understood as 7 Piotr Janusz and Maciej Kaliski, “Prospects for the Use of LNG Terminals to Meet the Demand for Natural Gas in the EU,” Polityka Energetyczna 21 (2018).

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a contested term; Benjamin Sovacool aptly demonstrated the existence of 45 separate definitions of the term, which encompassed ecological, geological, economic, political and scientific definitions.8 For this chapter, however, a more nuanced view of energy is taken, given that the primary focus is on energy trade relations with the GCC. Ultimately, the policy requirements that states have to follow in regard to energy supply security fall between short and long-term measures. Short-term measures can be understood to encompass issues that disrupt supply chains, hence the need for strategic reserves and measures to mitigate energy shortages between countries, in addition to emergency contingency planning. The longer-term measures predominantly relate to the diversification of supplies, promotion of domestic energy production, geopolitical concerns such as supply-route security and the role of infrastructure to facilitate access to the supplies, in addition to the geological availability of energy. Such concerns take on a national security characteristic given that disruption to energy has the potential to cause significant disruption to the social and economic fabric of the country. While achieving an appropriate ‘energy mix’ is a necessary part of attaining energy security, given its role in catering for energy needs, it is appropriate to recognize that the concept of energy self-sufficiency is both untenable and politicized as a concept. Therefore, the focus needs to concentrate on the diversification of supplies, given this has clear implications on the EU-GCC bilateral energy trade. Following the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, a new energy policy strategy was released in 2010: Energy 2020—A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy.9 What differentiated this strategy from the numerous previous green papers, communiqués and strategies was that it was based on the legal context offered through the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force in 2009. A positive indicator for the GCC was that a greater focus on the diversification of supply became a policy obligation for European countries based on this new context. Further impetus was given to the issue of energy security in 2014 following the Russian annexation of the Crimea and the suspension of Russian supplies 8 Benjamin K. Sovacool, “Introduction: Defining, Measuring, and Exploring Energy Security,” in The Routledge Handbook of Energy Security, ed. Benjamin K. Sovacool (London: Routledge, 2011), 3–6. 9 European Commission, Energy 2020: A Strategy for Competitive, Sustainable and Secure Energy (Brussels: European Commission, 2010).

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to Ukraine. It was within this context that the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, unveiled a proposal in 2014 for a European Energy Security Strategy, before taking up his role as President of the European Council. This strategy primarily focused on energy security for gas, but it also included the conception for a European Energy Union. It was following the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the EC in 2014, that his administration published the Energy Union Strategy in 2015. This can be considered a watershed moment in the strategic and legislative thinking on energy within the EU, as it was to serve as a comprehensive strategy, which required implementation of legislation for a new European energy market and also included the role of clean energy as a package of reforms. Given the legal implications of the Lisbon Treaty, the strategy set in motion a series of initiatives that led to an impetus for increased diversification of energy supplies and a new agenda to link energy matters to environmental considerations. As part of the 2020 climate and energy package, the EU set out energy targets for a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels and a 20% target for the use of renewable energy, in addition to a 20% improvement in energy efficiency. For the medium-term, the EU’s targets for 2030 were as follows: 1. At least 40% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels). 2. At least 32% share for renewable energy. 3. At least 32.5% improvement in energy efficiency. In the longer-term, it was envisaged that the EU would be carbon neutral by 2050, i.e., an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as part of the European Green Deal and the undertakings made as part of the 2016 Paris Agreement for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. With environmental considerations and renewable energy taken into consideration, it poses the question of whether it would inhibit the trade in energy or open new opportunities for the EU-GCC. Indeed, this is an area which has seen substantial investment on research and development projects by GCC states.10 What can be observed here is

10 Steffen Hertog and Giacomo Luciani, Energy and Sustainability Policies in the GCC (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2009).

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that the GCC states began to engage with the EU since the 17th GCCEC Joint Co-operation Committee in 2006, and subsequently became party to the EU-GCC Clean Energy Network in 2010.11 Indeed, it is generally accepted wisdom that the EU and GCC have clear potential for further developing the cooperation in the renewable energy sector given the mutual benefit it offers to both parties, and it is an area that has promoted scientific cooperation.12 Despite this potential, the lack of substantive cooperation among the GCC states has proven to be a barrier for more in-depth cooperation with the EU being realized,13 in addition to the preference for bilateralism by the GCC states.14 While in the longer term, the issue of a declining market for oil and gas within the EU can be expected, as it would lessen trade flows, there is also a separate dynamic concerning the strategy for diversified energy supply to the EU for such products. Also, it is worth considering whether the GCC has the potential to partner with the EU as part of its carbon neutral strategy. With these factors taken into consideration, the geopolitical issues relating to the supply of oil and natural gas are essential to fully understand the way the new energy and environmental era can be navigated by the GCC states and what this indicates for policymakers in the future. Based on this, the following section will engage with energy security issues within the EU before moving on to examining broad observations at a geopolitical level, which could shape the GCC’s relationship with the EU in terms of energy and environmental matters.

Energy Security in the European Union As a proportion of global Gross Domestic Product in 2018, the EU-27 accounted for 18.6%, which can be contrasted to the United States at 11 A. Papadopoulou et al., “Tools and Mechanisms Fostering EU GCC Cooperation on Energy Efficiency,” Paper Presented at the World Renewable Energy Congress-Sweden, Linköping, Sweden, May 8–13, 2011. 12 Abdulaziz Al-Shalabi, Nicolas Cottret, and Emanuela Menichetti, “EU-GCC Cooperation on Energy,” in Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads, ed. Silvia Colombo (Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014), 157–222. 13 Alexandros Flamos, “The Timing Is Ripe for an EU-GCC ‘Clean Energy’ Network,” Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy 10, no. 3 (2015): 319–320. 14 Christian Koch, Constructing a Viable EU-GCC Partnership (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, The Centre for the Study of Global Governance, 2014), 14–16.

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24%, China at 15.9% and Japan at 5.8%. While the EU remains a leading economic area, it is noteworthy that its share of global primary energy production amounted to only 4.6%. Despite a variety of energy being available within the EU, production remains insufficient to meet the EU27’s energy needs, with around 58% of its energy requirements being imported in 2018. A wide variance exists between all the EU member states in terms of the proportion to which they import energy fuels, but all EU member states are net importers of energy. Variances do exist, as the largest net importers of energy fuels are Germany, Italy, France and Spain. However, when considered against the relative reliance on imports to population size, the largest proportional importers are Luxembourg, Malta and Belgium. Although there is a reliance on energy imports, the EU has a balanced energy mix. In practical terms, the EU has a varied energy production mix with non-renewable fuel types—solid fuels, natural gas, nuclear energy— ranging between 10 and 30% of production, while only in oil is the proportion less than 10%. The EU is, therefore, in a favourable position in comparison with many G20 members whose energy mixes are typically dominated by a single form of energy. However, its energy insecurity is that it is reliant on imports for all member states, which are mainly sourced from Russia. The origins and composition of the EU’s energy imports are an issue of relevance to its relations with the GCC. Although more than half of Europe’s total energy needs are imported, a far greater import dependency exists for crude oil (86.7%) and natural gas (74.3%), based on 2017 figures. It is noteworthy in both Tables 1 and 2 that the main trading partners from the GCC to the EU are Saudi Arabia, in terms of refined and Table 1 EU-27 imports of petroleum oil by trading partner 2019

Trading partner Russia Nigeria Iraq Kazakhstan Norway United States Libya Saudi Arabia Others

Percentage of total oil imports (%) 27.1 9.3 8.0 7.7 7.4 6.6 6.5 6.5 20.9

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Table 2 EU-27 imports of natural gas by trading partner 2019

Trading partner Russia Norway Algeria Qatar Nigeria Others

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Percentage of natural gas imports (%) 45.7 22.4 11.6 6.4 4.8 9.2

crude oil, and Qatar for natural gas. Despite these states being the main trade partners to the EU, it is noteworthy that neither sector exceeds 7% of total EU imports for that commodity. For both oil and natural gas, Russia and Norway are the most significant trading partners given that combined, they provide around 35% of total petroleum oil imports and just under 70% of total natural gas imports.15 The main reason for this prominence is based on geographic proximity and the ability to use pipeline-based exports. Indeed, this also accounts for the significant proportion of natural gas that Algeria supplies the EU (11.6%) in comparison to Qatar (6.4%), which supplies it through liquified natural gas (LNG) tankers. In terms of petroleum oil from the Middle Eastern region, it is noteworthy that Libya can be compared to Saudi Arabia, as both provide a comparable proportion of oil to the EU market. However, Iraq provides a higher proportion and is the third-largest supplier of oil at 8%. Although Libya does not supply oil to the EU by pipeline, its geographic proximity enables an efficient tanker-based supply. It is worth highlighting that in terms of Iraq’s supply of oil to the EU, it is explainable by European energy companies who have established a significant footprint in the energy market with sizable shares in the Iraqi oil fields; this has followed a positive trend since the interruption caused by the 2003 invasion of Iraq.16 This factor alone has facilitated a greater engagement with the European market in terms of supply. It is indicative in Table 3 that although there has been a progressive rise in energy imports across the EU-27, significant variances exist 15 Christos Roupas, Alexandros Flamos, and John Psarras, “Comparative Analysis of EU Member Countries Vulnerability in Oil and Gas,” Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy 6, no. 4 (2011): 356. 16 Amir M. Kamel, The Political Economy of EU Ties with Iraq and Iran: An Assessment of the Trade-Peace Relationship, The Political Economy of the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 67–84.

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Table 3

Total energy import dependency rate 1990−201817

Geographic breakdown

Percentage of energy import dependency (%) 1990

European Union—27 countries (from 2020) European Union—28 countries (2013−2020) Euro area—19 countries (from 2015) Belgium Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Germany Estonia Ireland Greece Spain France Croatia Italy Cyprus Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Hungary Malta Netherlands Austria Poland Portugal Romania Slovenia Slovakia Finland Sweden United Kingdom

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2018

50.1

52.2

56.3

57.8

55.7

56.0

58.2

44.0

43.1

46.5

52.2

52.6

53.9

55.7

57.2

59.7

64.1

65.1

61.8

62.1

63.2

75.3 63.4 15.2 45.5 46.5 45.3 69.0 61.9 62.7 52.2 40.2 84.4 98.3 89.0 71.0 99.5 49.3 100.0 23.7 68.8 0.9 83.6 35.9 45.9 77.1 61.0 38.2 2.3

81.0 57.3 20.5 33.5 56.7 34.3 71.3 66.5 71.9 47.7 36.3 82.0 100.5 70.5 61.9 97.7 47.8 103.6 20.8 66.6 −0.2 85.7 30.9 51.0 68.9 53.5 37.8 −16.8

78.2 46.4 22.7 −35.9 59.4 33.8 85.4 69.1 76.8 51.2 48.5 86.5 98.6 61.0 57.8 99.6 55.0 100.2 38.3 65.5 10.7 85.3 21.9 52.8 65.1 55.5 39.3 −17.1

80.0 47.3 27.8 −50.6 60.7 28.2 89.6 68.2 81.5 51.7 52.6 83.3 100.7 63.8 55.3 97.4 62.3 100.0 37.8 71.8 17.7 88.6 27.5 52.5 66.0 54.5 37.9 13.4

77.9 40.1 25.3 −16.0 60.0 15.5 87.1 68.6 77.1 48.7 46.7 82.6 100.6 45.5 79.0 97.0 56.9 99.0 28.3 62.8 31.6 75.2 21.4 49.5 64.4 48.8 37.8 29.0

83.4 36.4 31.9 13.0 62.1 9.8 88.7 71.0 72.8 45.9 48.8 77.0 97.3 51.2 75.5 95.9 53.9 97.3 48.5 60.4 29.9 76.3 16.7 49.7 60.1 48.0 30.0 37.7

82.3 36.4 36.7 23.7 63.6 0.7 67.4 70.7 73.3 46.6 52.7 76.3 92.5 44.3 74.2 95.1 58.1 97.8 59.7 64.3 44.8 75.6 24.3 51.3 63.7 44.9 29.2 35.4

17 European Commission, Energy Production and Imports Commission, 2019).

(Brussels: European

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between member states. This has implications in terms of the bilateral relations that the EU and its member states have with the GCC, as higher degrees of dependency and energy linkages necessarily exist. As highlighted earlier, there is a dual-level approach to how energy strategy is navigated whereby the EU has responsibilities in tandem with those of individual member states. In practical terms, this means that while the leading energy exporters to the EU region are Saudi Arabia and Qatar, their target markets vary by country based on their specific needs and the availability of supply. Furthermore, European energy policies and strategy guide member states, and the level of interconnectedness with the GCC, remain dependent on bilateral energy agreements. Despite the EU-27 being uniformly dependent on energy imports and it being a leading trade partner for the GCC collectively, it is instructive to distinguish the trade in energy products from the total calculation. For Saudi Arabia, the proportion of its oil exports to the EU-27 constitutes only a small proportion of its total export market in mineral products, as the majority of its oil exports go to South and East Asia. In regard to Europe, of the EU-27, the largest trading partners are France, Italy, Spain and Belgium; yet collectively in 2018, they amounted to just over 9% of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports. A similar pattern exists in the other GCC states, as the proportion of oil exports destined for the EU-27 market is comparatively low to other regions globally. To illustrate this, Table 4 highlights the proportion of total oil exports destined for the EU-27 by GCC country, and only in the cases of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia do EU27 destinations constitute a total share over 10% of their total refined and crude oil exports. It is also observable from Table 5 that the most significant countries in terms of the destination for refined and crude oil exports are France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Belgium. Therefore, the energy trade statistics allow us to conclude that the EU-27 as a destination market is both undeveloped and relatively marginal for the GCC collectively. In terms of gas, the total export market from the GCC amounted to $48 billion in 2018. Of that, a similar pattern exists whereby a relatively small proportion was exported to the European market, but it has been observed that this is an area for future growth.18 The proportions are demonstrated in Table 6, and it is clear that only four countries constitute 18 Haris Doukas et al., “EU-GCC Cooperation for Natural Gas: Prospects and Challenges,” International Journal of Energy Sector Management (2013).

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Table 4

Refined and crude oil exports from GCC states to EU-27 (2018)18

GCC country

Percentage of total refined and crude oil exports destined for EU-27 by GCC country (%)

Significant EU-27 destinations (% share of total refined and crude oil exports—above 1%)

Value of total oil refined and crude oil global exports (USD$)

Bahrain

15

$3.7 billion

Kuwait Oman Saudi Arabia

5 1 13

Qatar United Arab Emirates

5 4

Netherlands (4.48%) Italy (3.15%) Belgium (2.91%) France (2.54%) Spain (1.81%) Netherlands (2.79%) None France (3.56%) Italy (2.52%) Spain (2.27%) Belgium (1.31%) Netherlands (1.64%) Netherlands (1.27%) France (1.2%)

$53.2 billion $22.8 billion $189 billion

$27.8 billion $90.4 billion

Table 5 Percentage of total refined and crude oil exports destined for EU-27 by GCC collectively (2018)19 Destination country (% share of total refined and crude oil exports—above 0.5% of GCC total) France Italy Netherlands Spain Belgium

Percentage of total refined and crude oil exports from GCC country (%) 2.21 1.57 1.34 1.16 0.77

18 Alexander Simoes and César A Hidalgo, “The Observatory of Economic Complexity,” Paper Presented at the Economic Complexity Observatory: An Analytical Tool for Understanding the Dynamics of Economic Development, Workshops at the Twenty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2017. 19 Simoes and Hidalgo, “The Observatory of Economic Complexity.”

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Table 6 Percentage of total natural and petroleum oil exports destined for EU27 by GCC collectively (2018)21 Country (% share of total natural and petroleum gas exports—above 0.5% of GCC total) Italy Spain Belgium France

Percentage of total refined and crude oil exports from GCC country (%) 2.96 1.64 1.39 0.63

a market share above 0.5% of total GCC exports: Italy, Spain, Belgium and France. It is also important to appreciate that in the case of the gas market, 65% of the GCC exports originate from Qatar. Given Qatar’s leading role in the gas market, it is instructive here that in Table 7, no country from the EU-27 constitutes more than 5% of the total exports in gas, and the total exports to the EU-27 gas market amount to around 10% combined. On this basis, it can be concluded that although the EU-27 constitutes a significant trading partner in terms of total trade volume, when considering energy exports from the GCC, it remains a minority export market destination in comparison to South and East Asia. Although it is clear that relatively small proportions of the GCC energy exports are going to Table 7 Percentage of total natural and petroleum oil exports destined for EU27 by Qatar (2018)22 Country (% share of total natural and petroleum gas exports—above 0.5% of GCC total) Italy Spain Belgium France Portugal

Percentage of total refined and crude oil exports from GCC country (%) 4.59 3.54 2.16 0.97 0.67

21 Simoes and Hidalgo, “The Observatory of Economic Complexity.” 22 Simoes and Hidalgo, “The Observatory of Economic Complexity.”

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the EU-27, the scope for this to be expanded exists in the context of EU strategic calculations to diversify the energy imports away from the dominance of Russia, which was highlighted in the previous section. The issue here is whether the EU will seek to go beyond its long-standing balanced engagement with the GCC.23 It is also observable that while relatively small proportions of oil and gas exports from the GCC are reaching the EU-27, the proportion of GCC energy in the EU-27’s overall imports are equally low at under 10%. Indeed, it has been observed that there is scope for this to be expanded based on mutual interests.24 Despite these relatively low levels, the observations made in this section indicate that increasing the proportion of energy exports from the GCC to the EU market may be an attractive policy option from an energy security perspective given the strategic drive in the EU to diversify the origins of energy imports. Therefore, it seems appropriate to consider the extent to which the GCC would prove to be an attractive alternative source for the EU, so these relatively low levels can be enhanced further towards a higher degree of possible energy trade connectivity. The following section will draw some observations on trends taking place at a geopolitical level and propose how they may impact the potential identified in the GCC-EU energy trade.

Geopolitics Trends in the Global Energy Market With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a marked decline in the price of crude oil occurred that proved to have broader implications on the fiscal capacity of the GCC states. Moreover, the pandemic proved to have a rapid impact on the global economy and, crucially, the use of domestic transportation, aviation and the shipping industry. The overarching impact of this has been a reduced consumption of fossil fuels on a global level. It is worth noting here that the historical record has been for lower fossil fuel prices to dampen the adoption of more energyefficient products and renewable energy sources, given their higher cost threshold. However, as indicated above, the EU has recently implemented a strategic objective of becoming a carbon–neutral collective economy by 23 Nathalie Tocci, Framing the EU Global Strategy: A Stronger Europe in a Fragile World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 148. 24 Mohammed Al-Sahlawi, “Energy Security in the EU from GCC Perspective,” in The GCC Economies (Springer, 2012), 51–57.

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2050. Although carbon neutrality will seek to offset CO2 emissions by counteracting their effect through measures to actively remove greenhouse gases, it also underlines that there will be a greater emphasis on the use of renewable energies, which could dampen future consumption of oil and gas. This issue of a more challenging market for the GCC to supply oil and natural gas is underscored by the broader geopolitical trends taking place in the global energy market. Although the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has had a significant impact on the global economy, worldwide trends were indicating that the international energy market had entered into a cycle of lower pricing based on production outstripping demand for both oil and gas. The change in the global energy landscape was marked in 2018 by the emergence of the United States as the world’s largest producer of oil. The United States had, for much of the twentieth century, been the dominant oil producer, and it was only in 1974 that the Soviet Union overtook the United States’ position within the global oil production industry. Since 1976, Saudi Arabia has emerged as the world’s largest producer of oil. This transformational re-emergence of the United States as a dominant oil producer occurred due to the exploitation of shale rock through fracking. This transformation in the US energy sector was not only in terms of oil but also gas. The United States has realized a transition from being projected as one of the world’s largest importers of natural gas to being an exporter of this commodity. Although this transformation in production allowed the United States to claim energy self-sufficiency, the reality of global trade and how the energy market is structured will see the United States as being both an importer and an exporter of energy. What this all means for the GCC is that it will be faced with a more competitive environment as it seeks to maintain a market share, not only in North America but also on a more global level. This changing market dynamic has clear implications for the prospect of the GCC expanding its market share with EU-27 member states, as it will now need to compete with the United States. Given the existing commitments, however, and restrictions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to limit production, the indications are that it is the more agile producers in the United States who are more likely to secure a market share within Europe. The implications of a rapidly expanding supply of oil to the market led to a depressed oil price cycle emerging in 2014. It is noteworthy here that when the price of oil is adjusted by inflation, it is possible that at least

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four pricing cycles have emerged on a historical basis since 1973. From 1973 to 1985, the price of crude oil was in a high-price cycle lasting for 12 years. A second cycle took place from 1986 to 2000, where a low-price cycle occurred for 14 years. The third cycle in oil prices can be identified from 2001 to 2014, which saw 13 years of high oil prices. It is argued that since 2014, crude oil has entered into a low-oil price cycle that has been exacerbated by the transformational changes in North America. The implications of this are acutely felt by OPEC member states whose economic models had adjusted to a higher oil price. The ability for OPEC to significantly influence the market has waned to the point that it is only through cooperation with Russia that a capacity exists to influence the price of oil. Russia has coordinated with OPEC since 2018, which led to the maintenance of a higher oil price for just under a two-year period. This also enabled shale producers in the United States to maintain operations, which ironically allowed them to an increased market share at the expense of OPEC member states and Russia. In terms of how this relates to the GCC’s energy trade with the EU, providing the oil price is maintained above a threshold allowing shale producers to operate in the United States, these contexts would serve greater engagement by US producers in the EU at the expense of the GCC. It is at the point where the price of oil goes below the threshold needed by shale producers that GCC producers can compete on price given their low-cost production threshold on a per-barrel basis. On a broader geopolitical level, the trend in the energy market is for a shift in demand from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to non-OECD nations. It is striking that projections on energy demand indicate that any significant growth in oil demand will come from China and India. This is primarily driven by the issue of their population growth necessitating increased fossil fuel demand. Comparatively, the EU’s population can be expected to have peaked at 525 million by 2044, at which point it would see a progressive decline. This trend has longer-term implications on energy demand calculations for the GCC. Although there is a medium-term prospect for the GCC to engage in more significant energy trade with the EU-27 as part of its energy import diversification strategy, on a longer-term basis, the trend will be for reduced consumption based on demand. Given this, the maintenance of market share with South and East Asia by GCC producers has a strategic value that would need to be reconciled against any calculation for further engagement with the EU in terms of energy supplies.

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Moreover, in the context of China’s Belt and Road initiative, economic growth with China and its trading partners further holds the prospect for increased demand for oil in both South and East Asia on a strategic level. Therefore, there are strong reasons for the GCC to ‘look East’. In terms of the natural gas market, comparable trends can be identified as it is the non-OECD nations that are projected to be the drivers of significant future demand for natural gas rather than the EU. Overall, it is worth recognizing that the combined demand from China, Japan, South Korea and India, already constitutes more than 60% of global demand. India and China are the primary drivers of future growth in this market given their population size. Therefore, although the EU is dependent on 45% of its natural gas supplies from Russia, the strategic question facing the GCC, and Qatar in particular, is whether there is a strategic value in increasing gas sales to the EU. Indeed, while there is a growing market in the GCC for Qatari gas, the commercially driven nature of Qatar’s energy sector shows a long-standing focus towards destinations based on financial returns.25 On a strategic level, Qatar will naturally consider this against the opportunity to grow its market share and linkages with the EU-27. Therefore, the focus can be expected to be East facing with a sharper focus on China and India given the projected growth in their gas requirements. Nevertheless, it is observable that on a global level, increased centres of production have emerged concerning LNG that can meet any growth in the LNG import sector for the EU. It is noteworthy here that Australia has witnessed a rapid rise in its natural gas production that rivals Qatar’s position as the leading global producer. Adding to this, the United States has emerged as an LNG exporter and is now exporting gas to the Gulf region. It should also be recognized that any sales in natural gas from the GCC to the EU would need to be provided through LNG tankers. In contrast, gas from Russia is mainly provided through a pipeline-based network. Therefore, it is noteworthy here that the EC has emphasized that increased energy security for gas can be achieved through expanding the LNG sector in the EU, and is ensuring that all member states have direct or indirect access to LNG. Russia has also increased its sales of LNG to the EU through its Yamal LNG plant in northern Russia, but it is foreseeable that EU energy security strategy will need to reconcile the 25 Steven Wright, “Qatar’s LNG: Impact of the Changing East-Asian Market,” Middle East Policy 24, no. 1 (2017).

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competitiveness of Russian gas on price against the agenda to diversify imports. However, the dynamics of the EU strategy for a more diversified import supply base can be viewed to work in favour of Qatar, should it seek to expand its supply to Europe. The central issue facing the GCC is whether supplying increased gas to the EU market makes sense, especially when a higher return can be achieved from sales in East Asia given the distinct pricing indexes for Europe and Asia.

Concluding Observations and Policy Implications The GCC’s trade integration with the EU-27 has primarily evolved on a bilateral basis, although the above discussion has argued that there is scope for change. Indeed, the argument of this chapter has been that it is in the interests of both regional blocs to deepen their trading ties and to collaboratively engage in longer-term research and development projects that advance renewable energy technology. While both goals require a clear strategic understanding of common interests, they also require the relationship to be reinvigorated and envisaged on a long-term basis for it to be developed strategically rather than being transactional on trade. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify two key policy recommendations. Firstly, the EU-27 should strategically undertake to progressively substitute Russian gas imports with supplies originating from Qatar. The new legislative and policy framework within the EU, guided by a collective energy security strategy, heralds the opportunity for the GCC to have a more significant role in the EU energy market. The central issue is what the opportunity cost will be for the GCC. The EU energy security strategy, which entails a drive to diversify away from a dependency on Russian imports, is a context which the GCC states can capitalize on. Despite this being an opportunity, it needs to be balanced against the broader geopolitics of energy which has reshaped the energy market. On this, the GCC states face a more competitive market in the face of the transformational changes that resulted in the United States emerging as an energy exporter, but also concerning other emerging centres of energy supply such as the eastern Mediterranean and Australasia.26 Indeed, there is potential for a common interest between Qatar and the EU states in terms of the supply of natural gas, as Qatar has committed itself to 26 Naji Abi-Aad, Energy in the Mediterranean and the Gulf: Opportunities for Synergies (Istituto Affari Internazionali, 2009).

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expanding its production while it also will face increased competition from Australia and the United States. Nevertheless, there is a strategic opportunity for both the EU and Qatar to deepen their trading relationship in terms of energy. Secondly, renewable energy should be identified as a common strategic longer-term interest for both the GCC and EU. As this chapter has demonstrated, the prospects for greater energy trade integration between the GCC and EU must reconcile against the trend for the EU becoming carbon neutral as a long-term agenda. The longer-term goal of promoting environmentally sound policies and carbon neutrality should be viewed as a shared international goal. Although it is understandable to depict the Gulf states as primarily interested in securing market share for their oil and natural gas exports, investment in renewables and the advancement of technologies for a cleaner use of fossil fuels is a possible area of cooperation between the GCC and EU. Indeed, as part of the drive by the GCC states to achieve a sustainable post-hydrocarbon economy, it would be prudent for policymakers to consider the opportunity for the GCC states to leverage their expertise in the energy sector to engage with EU27 as part of the strategic goals of a carbon neutral economy, cleaner use of fossil fuels, and in terms of renewable technologies. This may include the GCC states strategically leveraging their hydrocarbon sector to focus on the production of blue hydrogen and blue ammonia to satisfy the EU’s long-term demand for clean energy. Moreover, by being further engaged in EU-27 strategy in this regard, there is the prospect of greater engagement in the supply of oil and gas to the EU market as part of the drive for a diversification of supplies. In the final analysis, capitalizing on these opportunities, while also mitigating against the challenges which have been identified, requires engagement from both sides on what has the potential be a common economic strategy, grounded in the interrelated areas of energy and environment.

EU-GCC Trade and Investments Omar Al-Ubaydli

Introduction The traditional case that economists make for free trade and capital movements is a strong one, and it has been enough to convince many countries and regions to integrate economically. Yet the arguments in favour of free trade extend beyond well beyond the direct economic returns it confers upon the protagonists: it promotes peace,1 encourages the dissemination

1 Patrick J. McDonald, “Peace Through Trade or Free Trade?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 4 (2004): 547–572.

O. Al-Ubaydli (B) Bahrain Center for Strategic‚ International and Energy Studies (Derasat), Awali, Bahrain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_7

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of ideas and technologies,2 stabilizes livelihoods3 and can help countries realize constructive geo-political goals.4 This expanded case for free trade applies to the case of EU-GCC trade and investment relations. The EU has a high per capita income, and after the disruption of the 2008 global recession and the ensuing Greek financial crisis, its pre-COVID-19 economy was generally in good health. Its primary extra-EU exports are machinery and equipment, motor vehicles and pharmaceuticals; whereas its primary imports are computer and electronic products, crude petroleum and natural gas, and chemical products. The primary trading partners USA, China, Switzerland, Russia and Turkey, of which both Switzerland and Turkey have free trade agreements. Like the EU, the GCC also has a high per capita income, and in terms of its overall pre-COVID-19 status, the GCC economy was generally in good health, albeit with the cloud of falling oil prices threatening. Due its limited size and population, the GCC has a high dependence on global trade. The GCC’s primary extra-GCC exports are crude oil, natural gas, petrochemicals and aluminium, whereas it imports a very large percentage of the goods consumed domestically. Its primary trading partners are the EU, followed by China, Japan and India. The expanded case for trade is critical to understanding why the EU has demonstrated such enthusiasm for a free trade agreement that yields modest economic returns to its $16 trillion economy. Since its inception, the EU (and its progenitors) have actively used trade policy to advance non-trade goals, most notably the exportation of its worldview, such as its commitment to multilateralism and the protection of the environment. The GCC, on the other hand, has perceived economic engagement with the EU not just as a way of lowering import prices and expanding export opportunities, but also as a way expanding the locus of its geopolitical relationships, as part of a broader, defensive security strategy in the highly combustible region that is the Middle East.

2 Tae-Hyung Kim, “International Trade, Technology Transfer, Growth, and Welfare in a Schumpeterian Model of Endogenous Growth,” Review of International Economics 7, no. 1 (1999): 37–49. 3 Mr Tim Callen, Reda Cherif, Fuad Hasanov, Mr Amgad Hegazy, and Padamja Khandelwal, “Economic Diversification in the GCC: Past, Present, and Future,” International Monetary Fund, 2014. 4 Kamal Saggi and Halis Murat Yildiz, “Bilateralism, Multilateralism, and the Quest for Global Free Trade,” Journal of International Economics 81, no. 1 (2010): 26–37.

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This two-sided enthusiasm has led to significant growth in trade and investment relations between the two sides, with the EU being the GCC’s largest trading partner, and the GCC being the EU’s fifth largest trading partner. However, the two sides have yet to cross the hurdle of an EUGCC Free-Trade Area (FTA). Initially, this was due to the absence of a GCC customs union, and also due discord between the two sides on environmental concerns. More recently, the EU’s emphasis on certain human rights and labour standards issues created an impediment. Moreover, lobbying by European petrochemicals producers has consistently undermined efforts to reach consensus. In 2008, the GCC unilaterally suspended negotiations; the EU remains ready to resume them at any time. Much has changed for both sides during the last 12 years: the global financial crisis, the rise of populism and economic nationalism in the EU, the Arab Spring, the collapse of oil prices, the rising threat of climate change, the Qatar crisis and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. These phenomena have a potentially profound impact on the goals and bargaining posture of both the EU and GCC. However, due to the complexity of these developments, it is difficult to ascertain their cumulative, net effect on the likelihood of finally establishing an EU-GCC FTA. With this in mind, this chapter seeks to answer the following two questions: What is the current status of EU-GCC trade and investment relations, and what is the likely trajectory? The chapter is organized as follows. The second section examines the EU and GCC foreign economic strategies from a historical perspective, and describes the previous efforts by the two sides to establish an FTA. The third section describes the current state of trade in goods and capital between the two sides. The fourth section analyses the prospects for deepening EU-GCC trade and investment relations in the light of the recent, relevant developments in the EU and the GCC. The fifth section concludes.

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A Historical Perspective on EU and GCC Foreign Economic Strategies The goals of EU’s trade policy are varied and ever-changing,5 but there exist consistent, core themes. The first is securing market access for European exporters, and simultaneously securing lower prices for European consumers; these are the traditional and universal goals of trade policy. Also in the same vein, in an attempt override what is referred to as “behind the border barriers” to trade,6 the EU also seeks adoption of its social, environmental and safety standards. These goals also reflect the EU’s less than total commitment to pure capitalism, and its belief that non-market measures are required to ensure protection of workers and the environment. Beyond this, at the bilateral level, the EU seeks to promote democratic reforms, adherence to global multilateralism, and the adoption of wider notions of EU standards. At the regional level, the EU wants to export its rules to other regions. And at the global level, the EU wants to shape the multilateral system according to its pluralistic worldview.7 In contrast, on the GCC side, the foreign economic policy is more on an amalgam of the interests of each of the six member states.8 In the case of the economically dominant member of the GCC, Saudi Arabia, during the last twenty years, its foreign economic policy has revolved around it being seen as a serious, credible and accountable international economic player.9 The remaining GCC countries are small, ensuring that their foreign economic policies have in general favoured multilateralism and free trade. In the case of Bahrain and the UAE in particular, attracting FDI has been a central plank of the economic strategy since the 1980s,

5 Omar Al-Ubaydli, “A Detailed Anatomy of EU-GCC Relations,” Bussola Discussion Paper, 2020a. 6 Alasdair R. Young, “Trade Politics Ain’t What It Used to Be: The European Union in the Doha Round,” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 45, no. 4 (2007): 789–811. 7 Sophie Meunier and Kalypso Nicolaïdis, “The European Union as a Conflicted Trade Power,” Journal of European Public Policy 13, no. 6 (2006): 906–925. 8 Omar Al-Ubaydli, “A Detailed Anatomy of EU-GCC Relations,” Bussola Discussion Paper, 2020a. 9 Steffen Hertog, “Two-Level Negotiations in a Fragmented System: Saudi Arabia’s WTO Accession,” Review of International Political Economy 15, no. 4 (2008): 650–679.

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formalized in the recently presented economic visions.10 Following the oil price crash of 2014, the economic strategies of all six member states clearly viewed integration with the global economy as a priority, both as a means of securing markets for non-oil exports, and also as a way of attracting inward FDI, which can create jobs and foster knowledge transfer.11 An additional remark is that the GCC was established in 1981 at the outset of the Iraq-Iran war, underscoring the collective security and defence goals of the bloc.12 Given their small populations and large resource wealth, the GCC countries are perennially at risk of armed conflict with their larger neighbours.13 Consequently, a consistent theme in the GCC’s external dealings has been gaining international recognition and legitimacy, as a way of reinforcing their sovereignty, and maintaining their territorial integrity.14 In this respect, regionally engaging large international players is a basic goal, independently of any direct economic benefits that such relationships might confer upon the GCC member states. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 elevated the importance of this line of thinking from the perspective of GCC policymakers.15 In the light of the historical foreign economic relations strategies pursued by both the EU and the GCC, it is unsurprising that the two sides expressed an interest in developing relations shortly after the GCC’s inception. The EU wanted access to a new market, especially one where the Americans had been hegemonic, and that had a geo-strategically important location. The EU also welcomed the opportunity to export its 10 Jordan E. Toone, “Mirage in the Gulf: Examining the Upsurge in FDI in the GCC and Its Legal and Economic Implications for the MENA Region,” Emory Int’l L. Rev. 26 (2012): 677. 11 Hichem Dkhili and Lassad Ben Dhiab, “The Relationship Between Economic Freedom and FDI Versus Economic Growth: Evidence from the GCC Countries,” Journal of Risk and Financial Management 11, no. 4 (2018): 81. 12 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads 14 (2014): 47. 13 Riad Kahwaji, “Gulf Cooperation Council Threat Perceptions Deterrence Objectives,” Comparative Strategy 22, no. 5 (2003): 515–520. 14 Henner Fürtig, “GCC-EU Political Cooperation: Myth or Reality?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 1 (2004): 25–39. 15 Michael N. Barnett, “Regional Security After the Gulf War,” Political Science Quarterly 111, no. 4 (1996): 597–618.

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worldview through economic engagement. The GCC wanted to cement the bloc’s status by building relations with an economically powerful regional entity that features two of the five members of the UN Security Council, with the added benefit of developing trade and investment, and encouraging knowledge transfer. These sentiments led to a series of talks in 1988, which culminated in a Cooperation Agreement that came into force in 1990.16 The articles of the Agreement are mostly about promoting economic agreement across several sectors, and the preamble clearly indicates that the aforementioned goals of both parties. The Agreement also indicated the willingness of both sides to negotiate a FTA. At that point in time, the memory of the oil price shocks was still fresh, and so securing low energy prices in a manner that is protected by international law represented a key strategic objective for the EU.17 Further, the text included the objective “to help strengthen the process of economic development and diversification of the GCC countries and so reinforce the role of the GCC in contributing to peace and stability in the region”,18 which likely reflected the EU’s goal of using economic engagement to realize a non-trade goal, namely resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Subsequent communications released by meetings of the Joint Council regularly seek to express common positions on important geopolitical issues, such as nuclear proliferation, terrorism and armed conflict inside and outside the Middle East.19 Following the 1990 Cooperation Agreement, mutual trade and investment grew, albeit gradually, and regular meetings continued to be held, with both sides affirming their desire for further evolution of the relationship. However, FTA negotiations were unsuccessful. A 1995 communication from the European Commission to the GCC diplomatically expressed frustration in this regard: “Since [1990], the free trade

16 Nivien Saleh, “The European Union and the Gulf States: A Growing Partnership,” Middle East Policy 7, no. 1 (1999): 50. 17 Henner Fürtig, “GCC-EU Political Cooperation: Myth or Reality?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 1 (2004): 25–39. 18 European Commission, “Official Journal of the European Communities L54,” 32, February 25, 1989. 19 Nivien Saleh, “The European Union and the Gulf States: A Growing Partnership,” Middle East Policy 7, no. 1 (1999): 50.

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negotiations have not progressed and results deriving from the Cooperation Agreement have been limited”. During the 1990s, there were three major impediments to securing a FTA. First, the absence (at that time) of a GCC customs union, which, from the EU perspective, was a prerequisite for a FTA. The lack of a GCC customs union was not merely the result of bureaucratic implementation delays; it reflected internal discord in the GCC, with countries such as the UAE favouring an open economic structure (low tariffs and barriers to international trade), while Saudi Arabia favoured much more protectionist structure. However, by the turn of the millennium, this issue was resolved, as lower oil prices helped convince Saudi Arabia of the benefits of economic openness. Second, lobbying by the EU petrochemicals industry, which was fearful of GCC competition, especially from Saudi giant Sabic. As explained above, historically, the European Commission would have brushed aside such lobbying as it ran counter to the EU’s strategic objectives. However, the Commission’s ability to protect the Union’s interests from narrow lobbying was significantly curtailed by the 1990s. Moreover, similar to the United States, the passage of time following the EU’s inception allowed for the gradual increase in the ability of narrow interests to lobby, enabling the petrochemicals lobby to overcome the problem of its administrative distance from EU decisionmakers. Third, the large weight that the EU placed on environmental concerns was not reciprocated by the GCC. Under the umbrella of the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC), the EU was actively trying to decrease global CO2 emissions, and naturally viewed its economic relationships as a means for promoting this goal multilaterally. However, the GCC countries’ desert climate, reliance on hydrocarbons and desire to realize high rates of economic growth combined to create limited appetite for tackling climate change. Following the 1995 communication, both sides agreed to work harder at developing the relationship, and to shift the focus from a FTA to other dimensions, especially knowledge transfer and mutual investment.20 At the turn of the millennium, following efforts at establishing a GCC customs union, the European Commission commissioned an independent consultant (PriceWaterhouseCooper) to conduct a sustainability impact 20 Nivien Saleh, “The European Union and the Gulf States: A Growing Partnership,” Middle East Policy 7, no. 1 (1999): 50.

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assessment (SIA) of an EU-GCC FTA, in cooperation with the Centre for European Policy Studies.21 The European Commission then published a “position piece” in 2006 outlining its conclusions and intentions going forward.22 The SIA’s primary findings reinforced what could be inferred from previous attempts at negotiating an FTA: the economic benefits to the GCC were considerable, whereas they were negligible to the EU; and unchecked, the FTA would have adverse environmental consequences, but these could be offset by technology transfer in the environmental domain. The European Commission concurred with these findings, adding that the study did not pay sufficient attention to the impact of a FTA on the European petrochemicals industry. Also, it recommended that the FTA be accompanied by a dialogue focusing on regulation, standards and shared commitments, to address European concerns regarding labour rights and environmental protection in the GCC. Despite the resumption of efforts at establishing an EU-GCC FTA, the GCC unilaterally suspended the negotiations in 2008. Scholars have provided three main reasons for the impasse.23 First, and most importantly, continued lobbying by European petrochemicals producers, who perceive their GCC competitors to be exploiting subsidized access to raw materials, thereby creating unfair competition. GCC petrochemicals producers reject this charge, but a consensus on the correct interpretation of the GCC producers’ cost structure is yet to emerge. Second, human rights and illegal migration clauses that the EU insisted on being in the FTA. GCC negotiators regarded these issues are irrelevant to what is essentially an economic agreement, but the EU’s integration of trade with non-trade issues is clearly a consistent theme in all of its trade negotiations historically.

21 PriceWaterhouseCooper, “Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) of the Negotiations of the Trade Agreement Between the European Community and the Countries of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC),” 2014. 22 European Commission, “Trade SIA of the EC-GCC Negotiations: Position Paper,” 2006. 23 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads 14 (2014): 47.

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Fig. 1 EU-GCC total trade in goods as a % of GDP (Source World Bank and OEC)

Third, the GCC countries were reluctant to liberalize services and government procurement in a manner consistent with the EU’s wishes. Though these three factors led to the halt of formal negotiations, informal negotiations continue.

EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations Trade in Goods This chapter will focus on the trade in goods, and not the trade in services. This is partially due to the fact that the data on trade in goods is superior; and also in an effort to limit the scope of the chapter. For a more detailed analysis, see Al-Ubaydli.24 Throughout this section, “products” are defined as six-digit classes of good under the UN harmonized system (HS) of goods classification. Figure 1 shows total EU-GCC trade in goods as a percentage of both EU and GCC GDP for the period 2010–2017; it has several notable

24 Omar Al-Ubaydli, “A Detailed Anatomy of EU-GCC Relations,” Bussola Discussion Paper, 2020a.

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features. First, EU-GCC merchandise trade is quite stable, with the post2015 decline likely reflecting the collapse of global oil prices, rather than any fundamental change in the volume of goods exchanged. Second, EU-GCC merchandise trade makes a modest contribution to the EU economy (around 1% of EU GDP), whereas it makes a large contribution to the GCC economy (around 11% of GCC GDP). In terms of jobs, in the EU case, merchandise trade with the GCC supports around nine million jobs,25 which is equal to 4% of total EU employment, meaning that its importance to jobs is larger than its importance to the economy. Third, EU-GCC merchandise trade makes a moderate contribution to total extra-EU merchandise trade (around 4.5%), whereas it makes a very large contribution to total extra-GCC merchandise trade (around 19%). In fact, as mentioned above, the EU is the GCC’s largest trading partner; while the GCC is the EU’s fifth largest trading partner.26 We next turn to the composition of EU exports to the GCC. Figure 2 shows the contribution of the 11 most important EU exports to the GCC in both 2010 and 2017. Several features of these data are noteworthy. First, EU merchandise exports to the GCC match up quite closely to the EU’s global merchandise exports, meaning that from the perspective of EU interests, the political economy of EU merchandise exports to the GCC is reasonably approximated by the political economy of EU merchandise exports to the rest of the world. Second, in line with EU exports in general, the goods are highly diverse: they include aircraft, motor vehicles, transmission apparatus, pharmaceuticals, oil products, plumbing equipment and diamonds for jewellery. This is primarily due to the dynamism and maturity of multiple EU economies, such as Denmark, Finland and Germany. Further evidence of this point can be seen in Fig. 3, which shows the contribution of the top 5 products to total EU exports to the GCC, as

25 Z. Kutlina-Dimitrova, J. Rueda-Cantuche, A. Amores, and M.V. Roman, “How Important Are EU Exports for Jobs in the EU?” EU Trade Chief Economist Note, 2018, https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2018/november/tradoc_157517. pdf. Accessed May 5, 2020. 26 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads 14 (2014): 47.

EU-GCC TRADE AND INVESTMENTS 0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0% Fixed wing aircraft, unladen weight > 15,000 kg

7.0%

2010

135

2.4% 2.4% 2.3% 2.2% 1.8% 1.8% 1.3% 1.2% 1.2% 0.7%

Large Sized Cars Turbo-jet engines of a thrust > 25 KN Transmit-receive apparatus for radio, TV, etc. Medicaments nes, in dosage Jewellery and parts of precious metal except silver Oils petroleum, bituminous, distillates, except crude

8.1% 1.6% 3.6%

Medium Sized Cars

1.8% 3.0% 2017

Aircraft parts nes

2.1% 3.0% 2.7%

Taps, cocks, valves and similar appliances, nes

0.8% 1.5% 1.8%

Diamonds (jewellery) unworked or simply sawn, cleaved

Fig. 2 Composition of primary EU exports to GCC (Source OEC) 70% 60%

54%

54%

54%

23%

24%

23%

16%

16%

2010

2011

58%

55%

60%

57%

56%

27%

27%

19%

19%

20%

2015

2016

2017

50% 40% 30%

28%

24%

30%

20% 10%

19% 14%

16%

0% Total share of top 5

2012

2013

2014

Total share of top 10

Total share of top 100

Fig. 3 Contribution of Top Products to EU-GCC Merchandise Exports (Source OEC)

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well as the top 10, and the top 100. The top 5 account for 15–20% of total exports, while the top 100 account for 50–60%. Returning to Fig. 2, the third remark is that with the exception of aircraft, which are consistently (and by far) the largest EU export to the GCC, all of these key exports are produced by the private sector, which creates a distance between the responsible industries and government policymakers. The aircraft exports, which are primarily civilian aircraft from Airbus to airlines such as Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways, do have a strong, direct link to EU policymakers, as approximately 25% of Airbus is owned by a combination of German, French and Spanish state holding companies, with remainder being freely floated on various European stock exchanges.27 This class of export also reflects the sale of military jets to the GCC, especially those produced by France, Germany and the UK.28 Fourth, during the eight years covered by the data in Fig. 2, the various contributions experience some small perturbations, but in general, the structural composition of EU merchandise exports to the GCC is quite stable. Figure 4 is the opposite of Fig. 2 covering EU imports from the GCC; again, several features are noteworthy. First, as in the EU case, GCC exports to the EU are structured similarly to GCC exports to the whole world, most saliently in the dominance of raw fossil fuels and downstream petrochemicals. Thus, again, from the GCC perspective, the political economy of GCC exports to the EU is approximately the same as the political economy of GCC exports in general. Second, the diversity of GCC exports to the EU is very low. The top three alone (various forms of oil, plus liquified natural gas) account for around 75% of GCC merchandise exports to the EU. Fig. 5, which is the GCC version of Fig. 3, shows this clearly (note that the y-axis in Fig. 5 starts at 60%, whereas in Fig. 3 it starts at 0%): the top 5 products account for around 80% of GCC merchandise exports to the GCC, the top 10 account for around 85% and the top 100 account for around 97%.

27 Airbus, “What We Do,” Airbus website, 2020, https://www.airbus.com/company/ we-are-airbus.html. Accessed May 31, 2020. 28 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads 14 (2014): 47.

EU-GCC TRADE AND INVESTMENTS 0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0% 35.3%

19.9% 19.5%

2010

137

Petroleum oils, oils from bituminous minerals, crude Oils petroleum, bituminous, distillates, except crude

2.9% 2.2% 1.5% 1.0% 0.9% 0.9% 0.9% 0.0% 0.0%

Natural gas, liquefied Polyethylene - specific gravity 0.94 in primary form Aluminium unwrought, alloyed

29.8% 29.6%

Acyclic ethers nes, derivatives of acyclic ethers Ethylene glycol (ethanediol)

7.5%

2017

2.3% 2.3% 3.2% 0.0% 0.8% 1.3% 0.1% 4.1% 0.7%

Polypropylene in primary forms Polyethylene terephthalate, in primary forms Diamonds (jewellery) unworked or simply sawn, cleaved Diamonds (jewellery) worked but not mounted or set

Fig. 4 Composition of primary GCC exports to the EU (Source OEC)

Third, in contrast to the EU case, government enterprises dominate GCC exports, as the companies that produce crude oil, petroleum products, LNG, petrochemicals and aluminium are all completely (or almost completely in the case of Saudi Aramco, as of 2019) owned by the GCC governments. In most cases, it is outright individual ownership, but in the case of GPIC in the Kingdom of Bahrain, it is a joint venture by multiple governments (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, via various companies) (Fig. 5). This is reflective of a broader feature of the GCC economies, which is that the private sector is largely uncompetitive globally in goods manufacturing, and is unable to penetrate foreign markets. The manufacturingbased comparative advantage of the GCC economies revolves around

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96%

97%

95% 90%

88%

98%

97%

75%

94%

96%

86% 83%

85% 83%

95%

90%

85%

80%

96%

85%

82%

81% 78%

81%

80%

77% 74%

74%

70% 65%

67%

60% 2010

2011 Total share of top 5

2012

2013

2014

Total share of top 10

2015

2016

2017

Total share of top 100

Fig. 5 Contribution of top products to EU-GCC merchandise exports (Source OEC)

their natural resource endowments, which are all owned by the government. Even aluminium exports are partially the result of low-cost power production in the GCC, derived from local natural gas supplies.29 Moreover, the link between these hydrocarbon products and the government is accentuated by the fact that oil and gas revenues account for approximately 70% of government revenues in the GCC countries.30 The fixed exchange rate systems operated by the GCC countries also depend upon hydrocarbon exports that generate US dollars. Together, these factors underscore the exceptionally high importance that the GCC governments directly place on hydrocarbon exports, including those that go to the EU. Fourth, as in the EU case, the contribution of the individual products that dominate GCC exports to the EU is quite stable in the period 2010– 2017; with the exception of diamond jewellery (worked and unworked), which goes from making almost no contribution in 2010, to almost 5% by 2017. This is the result of purposeful and successful effort by the UAE 29 Raed Kombargi, Otto Waterlander, George Sarraf, and Asheesh Sastry, Gas Shortage in the GCC: How to Bridge the Gap (Abu Dhabi: Booz & Company, 2010). 30 Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov, “Soaring of the Gulf Falcons: Diversification in the GCC Oil Exporters in Seven Propositions,” No. 14–177, International Monetary Fund, 2014.

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to become a hub for global precious minerals, through the creation of a favourable regulatory environment.31 In summary, from the GCC perspective, merchandise trade with the EU—both exports and imports—is very important, and the relevant interests are extremely well-represented by the GCC governments themselves. The key reasons for this are the small size of the GCC economy, the dependence of the economy and the fiscal budget upon hydrocarbons, and the existence of fixed exchange rate regimes. In contrast, from the EU perspective, merchandise trade with the GCC is of limited importance, and it involves a diverse array of interests, most of which are not proximate to the EU governments. The key reasons are that the EU economy is itself huge, and therefore has a limited need to trade outside its borders; and also that it is a highly innovative, meaning that it exports varied products.

Investment A detailed analysis of EU-GCC FDI requires bilateral FDI data. Unfortunately, the quality of freely available bilateral FDI data is quite poor. UNCTAD provide bilateral FDI data, but the most recent year for which data are available is 2012. Moreover, the coverage is very patchy, and so these data should be treated as indicative of general properties. Figure 6 shows the total inward FDI stocks in the GCC countries (and the GCC as a whole), and that originating from the EU. According to these figures, in 2012, around 27% of inward FDI was from the EU, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE representing the largest two shares by some distance. Figure 7 shows the GCC countries’ outward FDI stocks by location. Coincidentally, the EU accounts for around 27% of outbound GCC FDI, and again, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the two largest contributors. Notably, Kuwait has the highest volume of total outward FDI, but very little of that goes to the EU. The approximately $80 billion of inward EU FDI in the GCC equalled around 0.4% of total EU FDI in 2012, while the approximately $20 billion of outward GCC FDI in the EU equalled around 0.6% of total FDI stocks in the EU. Thus, the asymmetry in the strength of the trade 31 S. Carvalho, “Dubai to Be Gold Hub Despite Fall in Sales,” Gulf News, 2020, https://gulfnews.com/uae/dubai-to-be-gold-hub-despite-fall-in-sales-1.426086. Accessed May 5, 2020.

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3,00,000 2,50,000 2,00,000 1,50,000 1,00,000 50,000 Bahrain

Kuwait

(50,000)

Oman (2011) Qatar (2009) Saudi Arabia (2010) World

UAE

GCC

EU

Fig. 6 Inward FDI stocks in the GCC by origin (millions of dollars) (Source UNCTAD) 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 Bahrain

Kuwait

Oman (2011) Qatar (2009) Saudi Arabia (2010) World

UAE

GCC

EU

Fig. 7 Outward FDI stocks by the GCC by location (millions of dollars) (Source UNCTAD)

relationship (in proportionate terms) is reproduced in the FDI domain, albeit with an even greater imbalance between the EU and GCC. Unfortunately, we were unable to acquire data at the sectoral level, and so it is difficult to provide a more detailed analysis of the FDI. However,

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Ayadi and Gadi,32 who also face similar data problems, offer an explanation for the GCC’s relatively low levels of inward FDI: in the GCC, the government is the primary driver of economic activity, and represents the main growth sector, especially via the national companies that produce elements of the hydrocarbon chain. These companies are generally inaccessible to foreign investors, though the 2019 partial privatization of Aramco is a step towards reversing that. Ayadi and Gadi33 make the additional point that the attractiveness of the GCC to foreign investors— including EU ones—has increased following the establishment of the customs union, as it has enlarged the market and decrease the transactions costs that investors face. As explained below, this move was partially in response to persistent pressure by the EU to establish a customs union. Due to the somewhat narrow definition of FDI, notwithstanding the data limitations we described, the FDI data above significantly understate GCC ownership of assets in the EU, due to the non-inclusion of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) activity in the definition of FDI. Unfortunately, the GCC SWFs offer very little information about the size of their investments in any location, including the EU, but it is likely that they have invested tens of billions of dollars in the EU,34 motivated by a desire to diversify the GCC governments’ income streams. These investments include some household names, such as Paris St. Germain Football Club in France; as well as much less glamorous stakes in industry and real estate markets. Ayadi and Gadi35 point out that at one stage, leaders within the EU became concerned with increasing GCC ownership of strategic assets in the EU, such as aviation, and passed legislation that limited foreign ownership. A final remark, based on anecdotal evidence gathered by the author, is that from the GCC perspective, there has been very little effort at using EU-GCC FDI (in both directions) as a vehicle for technology transfer. China has been accused of forcing multinationals operating within its

32 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads 14 (2014): 47. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid.

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shores to transfer technology to its own entities,36 and using that knowledge to accelerate its own technological advancement. However, the GCC countries’ performance in research and development spending and in research output is below the global average, especially when accounting for their income levels.37,38 Consequently, GCC countries tend to see inward FDI as a source of jobs, and outward FDI as a way of diversifying income streams; and they view neither as a source of new technology, despite rhetoric that runs counter to such data.

Prospects for Deepening EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations Despite the failure to secure an EU-GCC FTA, in principle, from a historical perspective, the economic strategies of the two blocs still suggest a fundamental compatibility, and that a resurrection of negotiations is a logical option. However, the last 12 years have witnessed several important developments in the EU and GCC that have a direct impact on the two sides’ appetite for evolving their relationship. We now analyse these developments in greater detail. Recent Developments in the EU A first development on the EU side is the emergence of secular, structural problems in the EU economy. The global financial crisis in 2008 dealt a significant blow to the EU, and it was followed by a series of debt crises, resulting in dangerously-elevated debt levels for several EU

36 Dan Prud’homme and Max von Zedtwitz, “Managing “Forced” Technology Transfer in Emerging Markets: The Case of China,” Journal of International Management 25, no. 3 (2019): 100670. 37 Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov, “Soaring of the Gulf Falcons: Diversification in the GCC Oil Exporters in Seven Propositions,” No. 14–177, International Monetary Fund, 2014. 38 C. Naumann, O. Al-Ubaydli, G. Abdulla, and A. Alabbasi, “Bahrain Human Development Report,” United Nations Development Programme, 2018.

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member states,39 bringing with it the prospect of a decline in the longterm level of economic growth,40 along with decreased investment and job-creation.41 The implications of these economic challenges for the relationship with the GCC are generally positive. Though economic hardship tends to breed protectionist trade policies (see the second development below), at the same time, the EU’s centralized leadership, and the leaders of the member states, are collectively under pressure to stimulate the EU economy. Fiscal and monetary instruments have been used extensively in the EU in the wake of the global financial crisis,42 but their effectiveness is limited as they are better suited as methods for tackling short-term disruptions, rather than as a means for generating sustainable growth. Deepening economic relations with the GCC can help the performance of the EU economy due to the standard arguments relating to free trade and investment, discussed in the SIA’s conducted by the EU. Moreover, unlike FTAs with advanced and sophisticated economies such as the United States or China, the threat posed by GCC exporters to local EU producers is small, and is concentrated in the petrochemicals sector. That sector’s ability to successfully lobby is denuded by the weakness of the EU economy, and eventually, their resistance may falter in the face of the political pressure caused by the recession. The second major EU development is the increase in populism and economic nationalism in the EU, as reflected in the UK’s decision to quit the Union.43 The vote share of populist parties in the European Union has been rising steadily since the late 1990s,44 and this trend is 39 Philip R. Lane, “The European Sovereign Debt Crisis,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 26, no. 3 (2012): 49–68. 40 Ibid. 41 Viral V. Acharya, Tim Eisert, Christian Eufinger, and Christian Hirsch, “Real Effects of the Sovereign Debt Crisis in Europe: Evidence from Syndicated Loans,” The Review of Financial Studies 31, no. 8 (2018): 2855–2896. 42 Günter Coenen, Roland Straub, and Mathias Trabandt, “Fiscal Policy and the Great Recession in the Euro Area,” American Economic Review 102, no. 3 (2012): 71–76. 43 Hugh Gusterson, “From Brexit to Trump: Anthropology and the Rise of Nationalist Populism,” American Ethnologist 44, no. 2 (2017): 209–214. 44 P. Lewis, S. Clarke, C. Barr, J. Holder, and N. Kommenda, “Revealed: One in Four Europeans Vote Populist,” The Guardian, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ ng-interactive/2018/nov/20/revealed-one-in-four-europeans-vote-populist. Accessed April 8, 2020.

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reflective of a broader regularity whereby economic difficulties among the masses—such as those endured in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis—breed nationalist sentiment.45 Rising economic nationalism is in general a negative development from the perspective of the EU’s economic relations with other countries, as economic nationalists favour protectionist measures and economic isolationism. However, the GCC countries are a niche economic partner in that they have extremely low levels of migration. For example, according to UN data, in 2019, there were 27 million GCC citizens living the GCC, and 900,000 living outside the GCC, representing fewer than 4% of the world’s GCC citizens. In contrast, the corresponding figure for the EU was over 8%. As the case of Brexit clearly demonstrates, much of the frustration that globalization breeds is directly related to the accompanying migration: it makes locals perceive foreigners as competitors for their jobs,46 and it also makes them feel culturally alienated.47 In this regard, the GCC countries are an extremely benign economic partner, due to their citizens’ minimal propensity to migrate to other countries. This could allow them to continue to deepen economic relations with an EU that is responding to populist demands, though the GCC countries would likely need to deploy their most proficient diplomats, as globalization of any form is out of favour with large segments of the EU’s population.48 Notably, the populist trend is not absolute: pro-globalization and promultilateralism leaders such as Emmanuel Macron in France and Angela Merkel in Germany remain highly influential. Moreover, their push for multilateralism and respect for international law has been accentuated by the perceived US rejection of such phenomena.49 Joe Biden’s victory in

45 Paris Aslanidis, “Populist Social Movements of the Great Recession,” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 21, no. 3 (2016): 301–321. 46 Omololu Soyombo, “Xenophobia in Contemporary Society: A Sociological Analysis,” IFE Psychologia: An International Journal 16, no. 2 (2008): 85–104. 47 Jef Huysmans, “The European Union and the Securitization of Migration,” JCMS:

Journal of Common Market Studies 38, no. 5 (2000): 751–777. 48 J. H. Vela, “US and Europe More Skeptical About Globalization Than Asia: Poll,” Politico, 2010, https://www.politico.eu/article/us-europe-more-skeptical-about-globaliza tion-than-asia-poll/. Accessed May 31, 2020. 49 Natalie Nougayrede, “France’s Gamble: As America Retreats, Macron Steps Up,” Foreign Affairs 96 (2017): 2.

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the 2020 US presidential elections is unlikely to dent this trend, as many key organs, such as the US Senate (most likely), will remain under the control of politicians who prefer American unilateralism. This is one of the reasons why the EU has opened a regional office in Kuwait (see below), and indicates that the EU’s positive stance towards regional integration persists. The third major EU development is the rising perceptible effect of climate change,50 transforming the issue from a sort of pet project for EU politicians into perhaps the dominant political issue for many voters. For example, in the run-up to the 2019 European Parliamentary elections, 77% of potential voters identified global warming as an important criterion when deciding whom to vote for.51 As a result, EU policymakers have been much more aggressive in advancing the climate change agenda in all policy spheres,52 contributing to large amounts of tension between the EU and its long-time international partner, the United States.53 Again, Biden’s victory is unlikely to alter this trajectory significantly: while he is nominally much “greener” than his predecessor, Donald Trump, he will face considerable pushback when green policies start challenging the economic status quo. Returning to the EU’s increased appetite for tackling climate change, such a development will likely have a negative effect on the prospects of deepening EU-GCC relations: environmental concerns went from being a primary impediment during the 1990s, to a secondary one during the 2000s, but now the discord between the two sides on the issue is likely to be more acute. Declining oil prices (see below) also limit the GCC’s ability to deploy investment in renewable energies as a way of satisfying EU demands for greener policies. 50 Phebe Asantewaa Owusu, and Samuel Asumadu-Sarkodie, “A Review of Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability Issues and Climate Change Mitigation,” Cogent Engineering 3, no. 1 (2016): 1167990. 51 F. Simon, “Climate Change Will Be Key Issue in EU Elections, Poll Shows,” Euractiv News, 2019, https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/climate-willbe-key-issue-in-eu-elections-poll-shows/. Accessed May 31, 2020. 52 Sebastian Oberthür and Claire Roche Kelly, “EU Leadership in International Climate Policy: Achievements and Challenges,” The International Spectator 43, no. 3 (2008): 35–50. 53 Hai-Bin Zhang, Han-Cheng Dai, Hua-Xia Lai, and Wen-Tao Wang. “US Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement: Reasons, Impacts, and China’s Response,” Advances in Climate Change Research 8, no. 4 (2017): 220–225.

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The final major development is the 2019–2020 COVID-19 crisis, which is ongoing at the time of writing (December 2020). As of the start of December 2020, the EU/EEA and UK had 14 million cases, and almost 350,000 deaths.54 In general, it is too early to predict the long-term impacts of the crisis with any degree of certainty; however, the current indications are generally negative. In his summary of experts’ assessments, Al-Ubaydli55 identifies three likely developments that should have a bearing on EU-GCC relations. First, strategic deglobalization and the relocalization of production, in an effort to limit the exposure of EU supply chains to pandemics that occur beyond its shores. Several multinational companies have already announced their desire to cease operations in China, due to the perceived commercial risks of operating there.56 This will limit EU FDI outflows to the GCC, and will lessen the EU’s appetite to integrate economically with the Gulf bloc. Second, an exacerbation of the aforementioned populist and economically nationalist trends in the EU political landscape. The coronavirus crisis has unleashed a new wave of xenophobic sentiment in the EU,57 making the job of GCC trade negotiators significantly more difficult. Third, rising public and private debt levels in the EU. This development could actually work in the GCC’s favour, as it creates pressure on the EU governments to be more receptive to economic opportunities. However, it is more plausible that the rise in anti-global political sentiment will swamp the rising economic needs in the short term at least. In summary, from the EU perspective, during the 12 years that have elapsed since the GCC suspended FTA negotiations with the EU, developments in the economic and political landscape have in general

54 European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). “COVID-19 Situation Update for the EU/EEA and the UK, as of 31 May 2020,” ECDC website, 2020, https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea. Accessed December 7, 2020. 55 O. Al-Ubaydli, “Understanding How the Coronavirus Affects the Global Economy: A Guide for Non-Economists,” Derasat Policy Paper, 2020b. 56 K. Rapoza, “New Data Shows U.S. Companies Are Definitely Leaving China,” Forbes, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/07/new-data-showsus-companies-are-definitely-leaving-china/#331bbb3840fe. Accessed May 31, 2020. 57 International Organization for Migration (IOM), “Combatting Xenophobia Is Key to an Effective COVID-19 Recovery,” Press Release, 2020, https://www.iom.int/news/ combatting-xenophobia-key-effective-covid-19-recovery. Accessed May 31, 2020.

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been negative for the prospects of deepening the economic relationship between the EU and GCC. Nevertheless, as a statement on the European Union website on EUGCC relations states, the EU formally remains open to the resumption of negotiations at any time, which is consistent with its historically positive attitude towards regional and multilateral engagement. Moreover, in 2019, the EU opened a regional office in Kuwait, affirming its long-standing desire to develop its economic relations. We now turn to developments on the GCC side. Recent Developments in the GCC The Middle East region has been highly tumultuous during the second decade of the 2000s, and the GCC countries have been affected directly and indirectly by many of the developments. The most salient is the Arab Spring, which started in 2011. A full discussion lies beyond the scope of this chapter (see Colombo58 for a more comprehensive treatment). We will merely note, following Ayadi and Gadi,59 that the Arab Spring has in general disrupted the economic diversification strategies of the GCC countries. The governments responded to the perceived security threats by increasing the public sector’s historic economic hegemony, for example via increased public spending, in contravention of the goal of transforming the private sector into the economy’s engine of growth. From the perspective of economic integration with the EU, this is a negative development. It decreases the potential growth rate of the economy, and hence the size of the economic carrot dangled before EU trade negotiators. Moreover, it diminishes the variety and quality of investment opportunities available to EU investors, including through joint ventures. However, this must be balanced with the fact that several GCC countries believe that regional security threats have increased

58 Silvia Colombo, ed., Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads, Vol. 14 (Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2014). 59 Rym Ayadi and Salim Gadi, “EU-GCC Trade and Investment Relations: What Prospect of an FTA Between the Two Regions?” Bridging the Gulf: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads 14 (2014): 47.

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following the Arab Spring,60 in principle leading to a greater willingness to engage large foreign players as part of a defensive security strategy. The second major GCC development is the secular decline in oil prices, falling from over $110 in 2014, to below $30 in 2020. This has created fiscal and economic problems for the Gulf countries, as oil and gas revenues typically represent over 70% of their government budgets, and over 30% of their GDP.61 The impact of falling oil prices on the prospects for EU-GCC trade relations is uncertain. On the one hand, it decreases the size of the GCC economy, and with it the gross economic benefits available to the EU. Moreover, it also decreases the volume of funds that the GCC countries can allocate to EU FDI, and to direct- and indirect government purchases of EU goods, most notably the civilian and military aircraft that represent the largest component of EU-GCC merchandise trade. However, on the other hand, lower oil prices create political pressure for economic diversification efforts. This was most clearly seen in the case of the Saudi Vision 2030, which was launched in the wake of the 2014 oil-price crash. The diversification efforts require EU capital and EU knowledge. Moreover, access to large markets such as the EU is critical for diversifying the non-oil exports of the GCC countries. Further, all of the economic visions emphasize sustainability and elevate the importance of environmental concerns, and they are a primary reason for the large increase in GCC renewable energy investments during the last decade.62 This helps bridge the climate change gap that has existed between the two sides when discussing economic integration. In addition to these positive aspects, lower oil prices undermine the input-cost advantage enjoyed by GCC petrochemicals producers. The cost advantage is the primary complaint articulated by European petrochemicals producers facing the threat of competition from GCC petrochemicals producers; consequently, a sustained decrease in oil prices can undermine a key barrier to an EU-GCC FTA. 60 Silvia Colombo, “The GCC and the Arab Spring: A Tale of Double Standards,” The

International Spectator 47, no. 4 (2012): 110–126. 61 Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov, “Soaring of the Gulf Falcons: Diversification in the GCC Oil Exporters in Seven Propositions,” No. 14–177. International Monetary Fund, 2014. 62 Steven Griffiths, “Renewable Energy Policy Trends and Recommendations for GCC Countries,” Energy Transitions 1, no. 1 (2017): 3.

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The third major GCC development is the ongoing Qatar crisis, which started in 2017. The boycott of Qatar by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE has led to a cessation of merchandise trade between the trio and Qatar, and the suspension of direct travel between the two sides. This development is disruptive to the prospects of EU-GCC economic integration for several reasons. First, the negotiations become administratively more complex; while the GCC remains operational, ensuring that the views it articulates represent the views of the six member states become significantly more difficult, undermining the economies of scale benefit that underlies the EU’s preference for regional rather than bilateral engagement. Second, the GCC market is not as integrated as it was. As discussed in Abdulghaffar et al.,63 the single market was malfunctioning prior to the Qatar crisis, and the prospects for addressing the problems are diminished by the political differences that now exist within the GCC. Moreover, as long as the crisis persists, EU entities seeking to establish a presence in the GCC are forced to select either Kuwait or Oman if direct flight access to all six countries is a necessary condition. The inability to select one of the three biggest GCC economies (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar) as a site diminishes the attractiveness of deepening relations with the GCC. These factors likely influenced the EU’s decision to establish a new mission in Kuwait in 2019, and they also explain why the EU has been quietly working on a bilateral basis during the period 2017–2020, including the signing of bilateral cooperation agreements with in various domains, such as the one with the UAE in 2018. Despite these impediments, it is worth noting that from an operational perspective, the GCC customs union has been surprisingly resilient. Discussions with officials indicate that meetings between the six member states have continued, and that they have been able to cooperate in the resolution of various technical issues. Moreover, one should be careful to differentiate between the suspension of trade between two countries on the same side of a bloc (the Qatar crisis) that is negotiating with another bloc, and the suspension of trade between two countries where one is in each trading bloc. The latter is a potentially insurmountable challenge for officials, as goods entering one of the two countries that originate in 63 M. Abdulghaffar, O. Al-Ubaydli, and O. Mahmood, “The Malfunctioning of the GCC Single Market: Features, Causes, and Remedies,” Middle Eastern Finance and Economics 19 (2013).

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the other bloc will potentially be blocked, fundamentally disrupting the customs union. In contrast, under the former case, the dispute-free bloc still has unfettered access to the bloc with a dispute; it just has to take the additional step of shipping goods to more than one country in the receiving bloc. The fourth major GCC development is one that is in common with the EU and the rest of the world: the COVID-19 crisis. As of the beginning of December 2020, the GCC had approximately one million cases, and over 9,000 deaths.64 From the perspective of EU-GCC relations, the impacts are again uncertain. The pandemic has precipitated a global economic crisis, and the GCC has not been spared. In addition to the contraction of important industries such as aviation, tourism and retail trade, GCC countries have also had to contend with the aforementioned sharp decline in oil prices. These changes are likely to lead to a further decline in GCC demand for EU products, including the civilian aircraft purchased so heavily by Emirates and Qatar Airways, as the global travel industry faces the prospects of a large and persistent contraction in demand. However, the political system of the GCC countries means that policymakers are shielded from the broad-based anti-globalist sentiment that has emerged across the world, and so from the GCC side, the governments should be willing and able to seize any trade opportunities that arise.

Conclusion: Are Relations Likely to Deepen or Retreat? The EU has a free trade agreement with both Israel and Palestine. This pair of agreements serves as an excellent demonstration of how noneconomic factors affect the EU’s trade strategy: the two economies are collectively trivial in size compared to that of the EU (equal to around 2% of EU GDP), and neither is an element of a strategically important supply chain. Instead, the EU’s desire to establish free trade with Israel and Palestine can be explained by an appeal to geopolitical interests, most notably the EU’s firm belief in multilateralism and diplomacy as the cornerstones of the global order. Moreover, their location in the geopolitically critical

64 Worldometer, “COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic,” 2020, https://www.worldomet ers.info/coronavirus/. Accessed May 31, 2020.

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location that is the Middle East—where the eyes of many observers are fixated at all times—enhances the EU’s appetite for these relations, as it wishes to use them as an example to convince others of the benefits of engaging with the EU. From the perspective of the GCC countries, this encroachment of noneconomic factors into nominally economic relations, including the free trade agreement, may have once represented an obstacle, due to the presence of certain incongruencies between the EU and GCC approaches to geopolitics; and they are likely to have been a key reason for the GCC’s decision to unilaterally suspend negotiations over the FTA in 2008. However, circumstances have changed quite dramatically during the ensuing 12 years: with the US’ influence waning, the EU has sensed an opportunity to advance its multilateral global agenda, with the issue of climate change taking centre stage. In principle, the EU is keener than before on convincing countries of the value of its own brand of multilateralism, and securing the support of the GCC countries would be a coup: Saudi Arabia is not only a member of G20; it is also home to Islam’s holiest sites, and Islam’s followers represent almost a quarter of the world’s population. The GCC’s calculus has changed dramatically, too. The three-digit oil prices of yesteryear are increasingly looking like a pipedream, intensifying the Gulf economies’ need to move away from hydrocarbons towards knowledge products. In this regard, the massive size and technological sophistication of the EU economy as a free trade partner is even more attractive than it once was. Beyond these economic considerations, the number of regional security threats that the GCC countries are facing has grown, and the Middle East is becoming less and less stable. After years of relative serenity, in 2019, the Straits of Hormuz—one of the geopolitically and geoeconomically most important maritime choke points in the world—descended into a period of chaos, while one of Aramco’s critical oil installations in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province was attacked by an as yet undeclared assailant. These events would have been unthinkable in the 1990s, in the wake of the liberation of Kuwait, when the United States possessed ironclad credibility in the security guarantees it presented to the GCC countries. Consequently, the GCC countries should be more willing than ever to strike a deal with the EU, and the geopolitical order that the EU is seeking to forge is increasingly looking like the only alternative to a breakdown of international relations, as the United States is becoming more isolationist

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and less active in the Middle East region. This realization may well have played a role in the 2020 Abraham Accords, which saw Bahrain and the UAE normalize relations with Israel as all sides look to build stronger regional partnerships to confront regional security threats. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world how grim it can be economically and politically without cooperation. While it has generally reinforced the prevailing trend towards de-globalization, the quite narrow forms of economic relations that the GCC countries are seeking with the EU are still consistent with popular demands that European politicians will be seeking to satisfy in the post-pandemic world. As a result, on balance, we expect that EU-GCC relations are likely to deepen in the coming years, including with the conclusion of the FTA. Both sides should be willing to soften their bargaining stances by the extent required to reach consensus and both sides will benefit economically and politically too. However, there will likely remain serious questions about the future of the international order and about the most stable security arrangements for the Middle East region. Deepening EU-GCC relations will make modest contributions to these important missions, but deep fractures among the world’s powers persist, and until they are resolved amicably, the future of the Middle East at large will remain virtually intractable.

EU-GCC Parliamentary Relations: Multilateral Challenges, Bilateral Gains Courtney Freer

Introduction This chapter will examine the nature and extent of intra-legislative ties between the EU and various GCC parliaments and elected consultative bodies—an area of cooperation often overlooked in favour of focus on higher profile trade and security cooperation. Nonetheless, delegations from the European Parliament have conducted official visits with legislatures in Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, as well as with the Shura Council in Saudi Arabia, in addition to having more informal visits with Qatar’s unelected Shura Council and the partially elected Federal National Council (FNC) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since the start of the eighth parliamentary term (2014–2019). The development of such ties is an important means of creating cross-border cooperation, highlighting legislative best practices and exchanging knowledge about current events across two very different yet increasingly interconnected regions. The variety of ties between the European Parliament and legislative bodies in the GCC also highlights the different models of legislatures

C. Freer (B) London School of Economics and Political Sciences, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_8

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or consultative bodies active in the Arabian Peninsula. While Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman house parliaments with varying levels of influence, Qatar’s only elected body, at present, is the Central Municipal Council, which has limited power in creating policy compared with the country’s appointed Shura Council (notably, this council will be elected in 20211 ). Saudi Arabia meanwhile also houses a non-elected Shura Council and elected local municipal councils with limited ability to influence policies, and the UAE hosts a partially elected and largely advisory body, the Federal National Council, voted in through an electoral college. The extent to which elected bodies are provided authority in policymaking therefore varies considerably, yet delegations from the European Parliament tend to meet with bodies most powerful in effecting policy change, regardless of whether they are elected. In this chapter, we will discuss the structure and extent of EU-GCC legislative relations during the eighth parliamentary term (2014–2019) with a view to highlighting ways in which they have changed over time, how they have effected policy changes, and ways in which they have contributed to the creation of lasting ties between the two organisations. To that end, we hope to identify policy changes that have resulted due to these ties, the creation of advisory bodies between the two regions, and analyse rhetoric resulting from these meetings, as it is a good indication of what the main goals are of such meetings. The most recent intra-parliamentary EU-GCC visit before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic was held in Oman and Saudi Arabia from 23–27 February 2020. Earlier visits have been conducted throughout the parliamentary term, and intermittent policy advice has also been granted. In the below, we give a summary of the extent of parliamentary inclusion and participation in each state of the GCC and then go into greater detail about legislative engagement with the European Parliament in hopes of understanding how this potential lever for cooperation has developed and continues to grow (or remain stagnant). We begin, however, with a brief assessment of legislative relations between the EU and the GCC as regional bodies over the course of the eighth parliamentary term. 1 Aziz El Yaakoubi and Eric Knecht, “Qatar Takes Step Toward First Shura Council Election: QNA Agency,” Reuters, October 31, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-qatar-politics/qatar-takes-step-toward-first-shura-council-election-qna-agency-idUSKB N1XA1CH.

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Recent Meetings Between the EU and the GCC The Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting of the EU and GCC was most recently held with all member states in July 2016. High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini led the EU delegation, while Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir represented the GCC since Saudi Arabia held the GCC presidency.2 Since that time and until January 2021, the GCC crisis that spurred Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt to cut ties with Qatar in June 2017 altered the nature of relations at the regional level. Although the Secretary General of the GCC, former Kuwaiti Finance Minister Nayef al-Hajraf, based in Saudi Arabia, still speaks on behalf of that body,3 even in meetings with EU representatives, most relations between the EU and the GCC have been shifted to bilateral channels. There had been discussions between the EU and GCC about the potential for a free trade agreement, yet, with the fracture of the GCC following 2017, such an arrangement seemed unlikely, at least until the signing of the Al Ula Agreement in January 2021. Nonetheless, the chairman of the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry at a November meeting of the GCC Ministers of Commerce and Industry and presidents of unions and chambers called for a resumption of negotiations of such an agreement and greater cooperation across the GCC in areas of industry and trade.4 Such collaborative ties have been severely damaged since 2017, yet may be revived as the region tries to recover economically from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, immediately following the blockade, the EU-GCC meeting was scheduled for 2017 in Bahrain, yet ultimately did not take place due to disunity within the GCC. The lack of unity across the region has affected its engagement with the EU across various sectors, even those like 2 “Co-Chairs’ Statement – 25th EU-GCC Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting,” Parlementaire Monitor, July 18, 2016, https://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/9353000/ 1/j9vvij5epmj1ey0/vk5vtnz6jdz0?ctx=vg9piqcfmzzz&tab=1&start_tab0=300. 3 “During His Meeting with the EU Delegation for Relations with the Arab Peninsula, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council Stresses the Importance of Joint Cooperation,” GCC Secretariat General, February 24, 2020, https://www.gcc-sg.org/ en-us/MediaCenter/NewsCooperation/News/Pages/news2020-2-24-6.aspx. 4 “QC Calls for Activating GCC Free Trade Talks with EU,” The Peninsula, November 5, 2020, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/05/11/2020/QC-calls-foractivating-GCC-free-trade-talks-with-EU.

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trade that would be mutually beneficial for all parties. Still, because the nature of legislatures varies so markedly across the GCC countries, bilateral ties are more prominent than those at the regional level; indeed, these states vary in terms of political systems and ambitions more than in other areas like trade policy and security, and so it is unsurprising that bilateral ties reign, particularly when it comes to intra-parliamentary communication. As a result, in the below, we analyse the level of intra-legislative cooperation between the EU and all six of the GCC member states.

Bahrain Domestic Legislature Bahrain, as a Shii majority country ruled by a Sunni monarchy, has tended to shy away from the implementation of an active or independent legislature, for fear that Shii representation could strip the ruling family and Sunni elites of their political prerogative. Indeed, Bahrain’s elected legislature, included in the state’s 1973 constitution, was suspended from 1975 until 2002 largely due to sectarian tensions. The king’s continued refusal to restore the elected parliament in part spurred Shii-led antigovernment protests and violence between 1994 and 1998, which again reinforced restrictions on domestic political life.5 In 2002, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa introduced a new constitution and legislative elections for the lower house of parliament with universal suffrage. Since 2002, then, Bahrain has housed a bicameral legislature, with the lower house, the Council of Representatives, consisting of 40 elected members and the upper house, the Consultative (or Shura) Council, appointed by the king and containing 80 members; elections have been held every four years since 2002. While the implementation of elections and restoration of parliamentary life marked a significant milestone, political power remains unbalanced. Although members of the lower house of parliament can prepare draft legislation, only the government can call a vote on these drafts, and the king retains the final word

5 “Bahrain: Unrest, Security, and US Policy,” Congressional Research Service, February 24, 2020, 3, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/95-1013.pdf.

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on matters of legislation.6 Further, a July 2002 royal decree has prohibited parliament from deliberating on any action taken by a member of the executive branch, effectively curtailing its power.7 Under the leadership of a Sunni monarchy, Bahrain’s opposition, both in and out of parliament, has tended to comprise Shii Islamist organisations, or at least has been portrayed as being primarily Shia in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprisings.8 After national dialogues held in 2011–2012 in the aftermath of the protests that demanded greater popular participation in political life, the National Assembly’s authority was increased, limiting the power of the king to appoint members of the Consultative Council and requiring him to consult the heads of both arms of the legislature before dissolving it. Further, the Consultative Council was granted the right to create legislation and recommend constitutional amendments, and both houses were allowed the ability to override a king’s veto by a two-thirds majority vote across both houses.9 Despite such institutional changes, further restrictions have been placed on independent political actors, particularly Shii groups that had previously led the broad-based opposition and that have been portrayed as having driven the entire protest movement. Due to the crackdown, the opposition boycotted the 2014 parliamentary elections, the first held after the widespread protests, leading to the election of a largely loyalist parliament, which gave the executive branch a free hand to implement further restrictions on members of the political opposition.10 Reflecting trends elsewhere, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, there has generally been a desire on the part of the government to discourage the involvement of religion in political life—largely due to the fact that Shii Islamist organisations dominated the opposition. Indeed,

6 Abdulhadi Khalaf, “Bahrain’s Parliament: The Quest for a Role,” Sada, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 22, 2008, https://carnegieendowment.org/ sada/21282. 7 Ibid. 8 Toby Matthiesen, “Sectarianization as Securitization: Identity Politics and Counter-

Revolution in Bahrain,” in Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East, ed. Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 213. 9 “Bahrain: Unrest, Security, and US Policy,” 2–3. 10 Kristin Smith Diwan, “Bahrain’s Carefully Managed Elections Remake Parliament,”

The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, December 3, 2018, https://agsiw.org/bah rains-carefully-managed-elections-remake-parliament/.

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in May 2016, legislation was introduced to ban preachers from joining any political society or engaging in political activities.11 Today, anti-Shii sentiment certainly remains, as does a tendency towards loyalism, which has spurred a focus on social policy rather than hard political debates. The most recent legislative election, held in November 2018, was widely regarded as neither free nor fair and was boycotted by most members of opposition groups that had not already been banned. For instance, key Shii political bloc Al-Wefaq and secular opposition bloc AlWaad had been banned through legislation issued in May 2018 by King Hamad that prohibited from contesting elections “leaders and members of political associations dissolved for violating the kingdom’s constitution or its laws,” as well as anyone convicted of a felony, and anyone who is considered to “intentionally harm or disrupt the constitutional and parliamentary process.”12 The elections were therefore held without opposition participation.13 As a result, the lower house is dominated by independents rather than members of cohesive political blocs, making it easier for the government to manage.14 EU Engagement It is worth noting that the European Parliament has repeatedly voiced concerns about the lack of political freedom in Bahrain, particularly as related to legislative elections. Its members also, notably, voted in favour of resolutions condemning crackdowns on protests in Bahrain in March 2012, January 2013, September 2013, February 2014 and July 2016.15 11 Habib Toumi, “Bahrain MPs Ban Mixing of Politics and Religion,” Gulf News, May 18, 2016, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-mps-ban-mixing-ofpolitics-and-religion-1.1830097. 12 “Bahrain Bans Members of Dissolved Opposition Parties from Elections,” The New Arab, June 12, 2018, https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/6/12/bahrainbans-members-of-dissolved-opposition-parties-from-elections. 13 Aziz El Yaakoubi and Nafisa Eltahir, “Bahrain Holds Elections with Ban on Opposition Groups,” Reuters, November 24, 2018, https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/ idAFKCN1NT03A. 14 Diwan, “Bahrain’s Carefully Managed Elections Remake Parliament.” 15 “Human Rights: Albinos in Malawi, Activists in Bahrain and Rohingya in Myanmar,”

European Parliament Press Releases, July 7, 2016, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ news/en/press-room/20160701IPR34497/human-rights-albinos-in-malawi-activists-inbahrain-and-rohingya-in-myanmar.

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These crackdowns led to the imprisonment of thousands of political opponents, and a European Parliament resolution issued in 2016 as a result “expresses grave concern about the ongoing campaign of repression,” called for the release of political prisoners, and urged an end to the practice of stripping political opponents of their citizenship.16 Further, in 2016, the European Parliament emphasised that “long-term stability and security in Bahrain can only be ensured by building a truly pluralistic society that is respectful of diversity.”17 In addition, in June 2018, the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution addressing the issue of human rights in Bahrain, particularly the case of Nabeel Rajab, a human rights activist sentenced to five years in prison for tweets in which he criticised the Bahraini government (he was released from prison in June 2020).18 The resolution also addresses the imprisonment of other political opponents, their maltreatment in prisons and the practice of stripping political opponents of their Bahraini citizenship.19 Regarding the most recent parliamentary election in Bahrain, members of the European Parliament candidly expressed that they were “deeply concerned about the restrictive political environment in Bahrain, in particular the government’s effective closing of all civil and political space” in a letter addressed to the Bahraini king in November 2018.20 They further urged King Hamad to “take all necessary steps to ensure the elections’ credibility, including by releasing political prisoners and allowing the formation of independent civil and political society organisations.”21 The statement additionally cited the May 2018 law that banned most members of the opposition from running for election, the forcible closure of independent newspaper Al-Wasat in 2017, and the continued imprisonment 16 Dania Akkad, “EU Parliament Condemns Bahrain’s ‘Campaign of Repression,’”

Middle East Eye, July 7, 2016, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/eu-parliament-con demns-bahrains-campaign-repression. 17 “Human Rights: Albinos in Malawi, Activists in Bahrain and Rohingya in Myanmar.” 18 Joint Motion for a Resolution, European Parliament , June 13, 2018, https://www.

europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-8-2018-0281_EN.html. 19 Ibid. 20 Letter from European Parliament to King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, November 16, 2018, https://www.adhrb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/MEPs-letter-to-Kingof-Bahrain.pdf. 21 Ibid.

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of journalists and human rights activists. In the letter, the European Parliament signatories make five demands: the release of political prisoners; the facilitation of “independent and impartial election monitoring by international observers and the United Nations”; allowing the formation of political opposition societies such as Al-Wefaq and Al-Waad; redrawing electoral districts to diminish opportunities for gerrymandering; and repealing the May 2018 legislation (the Law on the Exercise of Political Rights) that restricts members of the opposition from participating in elections.22 The European Parliament has therefore condemned the Bahraini parliamentary elections on a systemic scale: Bahrain’s electoral infrastructure is inherently disadvantageous to the political opposition. Voting districts have been drawn to disenfranchise the Shia community and to significantly favour the minority Sunni population. Polling stations are not tied to specific constituencies and are thus vulnerable to manipulation and interference. Furthermore, there is no independent and impartial electoral commission to investigate concerns of allegations of voter fraud or intimidation at the polls, nor has your government committed to permitting independent domestic or international election monitoring.23

In view of the European Parliament’s outspoken criticisms of the increasingly authoritarian Bahraini government, and particularly the relevance of the role of its legislature, it is unclear how effective intra-legislative meetings are in effecting policy change. The most recent inter-parliamentary meeting between the European Parliament and National Assembly of Bahrain took place in April 2015 and was the third such meeting in Brussels. The European Parliament delegation praised the reforms undertaken in Bahrain in recent years, particularly the creation of human rights institutions, the prisoners and detainees rights commission and the office of an Ombudsman but also expressed concerns about human rights, restriction of liberties and political arrests like those of Nabeel Rajab and Sheikh Ali Salman; members of the European Parliament also called for a comprehensive national reconciliation process.24 Bahraini interlocutors

22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Report, European Parliament Delegation for Relations with the Arab Peninsula, January 18, 2016, p. 2, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/122803/1058742EN. pdf.

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emphasised that “Bahrain was a very young democracy, which needed time to evolve” and therefore asked the EP to focus more on “positive developments and efforts made.”25 They also defended the sentence against Rajab in particular, stating that he had been sentenced because he committed serious crimes, not for political reasons.26 Further harming relations, in 2018, Bahrain refused entry to a delegation of the Subcommittee of Human Rights from the European Parliament.27 Shortly thereafter, in June 2018, the European Parliament adopted another resolution on human rights in Bahrain, particularly Rajab’s case and others imprisoned for their political views, calling for their release.28 The resolution also potentially considers sanctions. The Bahraini government responded by stating that it “strongly deplored” the resolution, stating that it was based on “false information that completely disregards the progress achieved in promoting and protecting human rights in the country across all the civil, political, economic, social and cultural areas.”29 Toby Matthiesen points out that EU policy towards Bahrain: has brought to the fore discrepancies between the interests and policies of the elected institutions (the European Parliament) and the appointed political institutions and the diplomatic service, at both national and EU levels. The European Parliament has repeatedly criticised both the EU’s policy towards Bahrain and the conduct of the Bahraini government. Fact-finding trips by MEPs have highlighted the repression of political freedoms in the country. While European bureaucrats seem to defend the EU’s institutional and strategic interests, elected parliamentarians have more leeway to call for

25 Ibid., 3. 26 Ibid., 3. 27 “European Parliament Human Rights Delegation ‘Denied Entry to Bahrain,’” The New Arab, April 27, 2018, https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/4/27/eur opean-parliament-human-rights-delegation-denied-entry-to-bahrain. 28 “European Parliament Calls for Sanctions Against Bahrain: A Wake-Up Call to the International Community,” International Federation for Human Rights , June 14, 2018, https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/bahrain/europeanparliament-calls-for-sanctions-against-bahrain-a-wake-up. 29 “Bahrain Deplores European Parliament Resolution,” Gulf News, June 15, 2018, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-deplores-european-parliamentresolution-1.2237312.

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a more values-oriented foreign policy and can play on the often-negative image of the Gulf in European public spheres.30

As a result, at the executive level, connections remain strong but are still elusive in terms of parliament-to-parliament connection, largely due to their very different functions and powers. A similar such dynamic is emerging in EU-Saudi relations as European Parliament’s criticism of Saudi human rights abuses become more pointed.

Kuwait Domestic Legislature Kuwait houses the most active and powerful legislature in the GCC, with its 1962 constitution promulgating the creation of a unicameral fully elected parliament. Rather remarkably, “this was the first time in the contemporary period that a Gulf ruler granted his subjects a written constitution. The document specified that the country’s sovereignty resided with the people, the source of all power (Article 6), drawing on both Arab and Western models.”31 The National Assembly, Kuwait’s legislature, consists of 50 members elected every four years (unless dissolved by the amir before that time), in addition to the (maximum) 15 members of the cabinet. Kuwait’s parliament has significant abilities to check the power of the executive branch. For instance, it is able to “declare an election invalid by a majority vote (Article 95); vote a minister out of office (Article 101); express noconfidence in a minister, including the prime minister (Article 102); reject laws proposed by the executive branch (Article 66); and draft and pass independent laws and regulations, though they must be approved by the Amir to become law.”32 Notably, the legislature also holds authority to

30 Toby Matthiesen, “EU Foreign Policy Towards Bahrain in the Aftermath of the

Uprising,” in The Gulf States and the Arab Uprisings, ed. Ana Echague (Spain: FRIDE and Gulf Research Centre, 2013), 79–80, https://www.tobymatthiesen.com/wp/wp-con tent/uploads/2013/07/FRIDE-TOBY-MATTHIESEN.pdf. 31 Joseph A. Kechichian, Power and Succession in Arab Monarchies: A Reference Guide (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008), 108. 32 Ibid., 281.

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oversee public finances, which has become a significant policy issue, as repeated allegations of government corruption emerge.33 From its inception, Kuwaiti parliament has proven itself willing to confront the government, though the executive branch undoubtedly retains the highest authority.34 As David Roberts explains, “[t]he most powerful institution in Kuwait remains the al-Sabah ruling family. Having ruled continuously since the mid-eighteenth century, it has been sewn into the fabric of Kuwait’s politics and society not so much through dictatorial methods but rather by conciliation and wholesale cooption in the post-oil era.”35 A vibrant political atmosphere, including a variety of Shii and Sunni Islamist, secular left-leaning and tribal political blocs, has emerged as a result. Though parties are banned and political blocs have no legal status, in practice they take on largely the same duties as parties, organising electoral campaigns and community outreach, and are more powerful and organised than political blocs in other GCC states.36 Further, groups arranged along tribal lines organise ahead of elections and arrange specific electoral agendas. The election held in November 2016 featured the end of an opposition-wide electoral boycott (although some blocs still boycott) that had begun 2012 after the amir’s introduction of a new electoral law that granted each citizen one rather than four votes. This decision was thought to disadvantage members of the opposition and particularly members of organised political blocs which had been active during protests inspired by the Arab Spring particularly in 2011. The Kuwaiti government did not respond with overt use of force as the Bahraini government did to Arab Spring-inspired protests, but instead issued repeated calls for new elections, imprisoned some members of the opposition and changed electoral law.

33 Mary Ann Tétreault, Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 186. 34 Jill Crystal, Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 72. 35 David Roberts, “Kuwait,” in Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies, ed. Christopher M. Davidson (London: Hurst and Company, 2011), 92. 36 Nathan J. Brown, “Pushing Toward Party Politics? Kuwait’s Islamic Constitutional Movement,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 13, 2007, 4.

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The 2016 polls, as a result of opposition inclusion, yielded an opposition-majority legislature for the first time since 2009. The parliament included a large number of newly elected young members of parliament (MPs), despite a continued boycott of the polls by some segments of the youth population. Many of them favoured government reform, with a particular focus on fighting corruption in the Kuwaiti government, which led to several ministerial interpellations since the inception of parliament and considerable opposition to the re-elected speaker of parliament, Marzouq al-Ghanem who is regarded as a member of the merchant elite, increasingly maligned by members of the opposition. A protest arranged in November 2019 targeted Marzouq al-Ghanem and his plan for integrating members of the bidun jinsiyya (without nationality) population into Kuwaiti society—a major issue since this population is thought to number around 100,000 people and so would have a major effect on electoral politics if naturalised. The most recent parliamentary elections were held on 5 December 2020, the first under the new amir, Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, who took power in September following the death of his halfbrother, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, who had been in power since 2006. Since ascending the throne, Sheikh Nawaf has asked the former cabinet to resume its posts until elections are held and new ministers are appointed37 ; the transition of power has therefore largely been smooth and featured continuity in policies; parliamentary elections also yielded another parliament with substantial and vocal opposition representation. Nonetheless, Kuwait faces major economic challenges, with its first downgrade by Moody’s in September resulting from “liquidity risks,”38 meaning that the country’s fiscal position and economic well-being more generally will likely be a major focus of Sheikh Nawaf’s policies and of parliamentary campaigns.

37 “Kuwait’s Emir Asks Government to Stay on, Prepare for Elections,” Reuters, October 6, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kuwait-emir-cabinet/kuwaits-emirasks-government-to-stay-on-prepare-for-elections-idUSKBN26R1IR. 38 Paul Abelsky, “Kuwait Gets First Moody’s Downgrade Over ‘Liquidity Risks,’” Bloomberg, September 23, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-0923/kuwait-gets-first-downgrade-from-moody-s-over-liquidity-risks.

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EU Engagement Given that Kuwait provides much more political freedom than some of its neighbours, we would expect greater room for intra-parliamentary cooperation. As early as 2013, members of the European Parliament created a Kuwait Friends Group to boost bilateral ties.39 In July 2016, the EU and Kuwait signed a memorandum of understanding to encourage bilateral cooperation in a number of areas—the first such agreement between the EU and an individual GCC member state.40 Kuwait has also agreed in principle to begin a dialogue with the EU about human rights.41 Tensions have existed, however. In February 2017, the European Parliament criticised Kuwait’s execution of convicted murderers in January of that year, stating that it “deeply deplores” these killings and calling for “a moratorium on the death penalty as a step towards its abolition.”42 The Kuwaiti Ambassador to Belgium charged that, in that instance, the European Parliament did not contact Kuwaiti authorities directly and instead relied on third party reports which were not accurate. Nevertheless, in July 2019 the EU opened a new delegation office in Kuwait in an effort to expand its presence across the Middle East; this office will also be responsible for Qatar, as the EU already has offices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.43 Having an office in Kuwait, which remained neutral in the GCC crisis, is strategic at the regional level but also indicates the extent to which values are shared between the two. Indeed, Federica Mogherini visited Kuwait in July 2017 to highlight EU support for the state’s efforts to resolve the crisis between its neighbours; she visited again in February 2018 to co-chair the International Conference

39 “European Parliament Forms Kuwait Friends Group,” Kuwait News Agency, December 17, 2013, https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2351005&langua ge=en. 40 Nawab Khan, “EU-Kuwait Relationship Takes a Leap,” Kuwait News Agency, July 30, 2018, https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2739193&language=en. 41 Readout on Statements from Ambassador of Kuwait to the EU, Government of the State of Kuwait, November 15, 2019, https://www.e.gov.kw/sites/kgoEnglish/Pages/ ApplicationPages/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=280136. 42 Habib Toumi, “Kuwait Rejects European Parliament’s Criticism Over Executions,” Gulf News, February 18, 2017, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-rejectseuropean-parliaments-criticism-over-executions-1.1980390. 43 Joshua Posander, “EU Opens New Diplomatic Mission in Kuwait,” Politico, July 14, 2019, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-opens-new-diplomatic-mission-in-kuwait/.

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for the Reconstruction of Iraq.44 Mogherini also very publicly lauded Kuwait’s role in the UN Security Council, stating that the country “is doing excellent work. We are cooperating closely with them.”45 Still, this cooperation remains primarily at the level of foreign affairs, rather than concerning domestic politics and the European Parliament and Kuwait’s National Assembly specifically. In terms of specifically parliament-to-parliament relations, these have fallen short of what we may have expected, particularly given that the EU has not had as many sources of tension with Kuwait than with some neighbours like Bahrain, as detailed above, or Saudi Arabia, highlighted below. In November 2018, National Assembly Speaker Marzouq al-Ghanem received Michelle Alliot-Marie, Chairperson of the Committee on European Relations with the Arab Peninsula in the European Parliament, and a delegation for a four-day visit.46 They spoke about boosting cooperation between the National Assembly and European Parliament in particular.47 It remains to be seen how this will be done, however, particularly given the pandemic. A delegation of members of European Parliament was set to visit Kuwait in 2020 in order to advance “parliamentary diplomacy.” As explained by Michael Gallagher, while officials and governments may find it more difficult to resolve issues, parliamentary diplomacy can potentially be more useful.48 On the Kuwaiti side, getting the European Parliament better acquainted with Kuwaiti domestic politics and positions will also be useful to advancing their relationship. Given that Kuwait’s parliament is perhaps the only one in the GCC with members holding ideologically opposed viewpoints, however, intra-parliamentary relations may prove more complicated, since the National Assembly rarely speaks with one voice. Nonetheless, Kuwait has an opportunity to lead in this area given

44 Khan, “EU-Kuwait Relationship Takes a Leap.” 45 Ibid. 46 “Kuwait Speaker Hosts Senior European Parliament Legislator,” Kuwait News

Agency, December 20, 2018, https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2766631& language=en. 47 Ibid. 48 “European Parliament Members Laud Kuwait’s Moderate Policies,” Arab Times, September 23, 2019, https://www.pressreader.com/kuwait/arab-times/20190923/281 681141596514.

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the political capital and sway held by its legislature domestically, as well as its neutral position in the GCC rift.

Oman Domestic Legislature Oman’s governmental system, under the leadership of Sultan Qaboos who ruled from 1970 until 2020, was largely personalistic. Indeed, Sultan Qaboos held the positions of prime minister, and supreme commander of the armed forces, minister of defence, minister of finance and minister of foreign affairs. Nonetheless, according to the 1996 Basic Law, Oman houses a bicameral legislature, including the 85-member Council of State appointed by the sultan and the 86-member Consultative (or Shura) Council that is elected. The first direct elections were held in September 2000 but included only 25% of all citizens over 21 then were expanded over time. Following protests in the country in 2011 inspired by the Arab Spring and particularly by poor economic conditions in areas of high unemployment, Sultan Qaboos granted legislative powers to both houses of parliament, but it remains unclear whether the sultan retains the right to ultimately veto these bills.49 The parliament can now question ministers, select its own leaders and review government-drafted bills, though it cannot create its own legislation or overturn the sultan’s decrees.50 In another sign of reform, Oman introduced elections for municipal councils in 2011, yet these solely have advisory power and tend to report issues of public health and maintenance locally to the Royal Court. The last parliamentary election in Oman was held in October 2019, with all candidates running as independents due to restrictions on political blocs and the relative historic weakness of these organisations particularly when compared to Kuwait. Turnout remained relatively high for the 86 members of the elected body, even though campaigning was still relatively apolitical.

49 “Oman Ruler Shifts Lawmaking Powers,” Al Jazeera, March 13, 2011, https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011313111457437560.html. 50 “Oman: Politics, Security, and US Policy,” US Congressional Research Service, January 27, 2020, p. 4, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21534.pdf.

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Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, a cousin of Sultan Qaboos, was crowned in January 2020, having previously served as minister of heritage and culture. He also serves as chairman of the future vision of Oman 2040, prime minister and supreme commander of the armed forces, but has appointed a separate foreign minister, finance minister, defence minister and chairman of the central bank as a means of de-centralising and depersonalising power. Rather than concentrating on political reform, Sultan Haitham’s focus seems to be primarily energising Oman’s economy as the state’s hydrocarbon reserves run low and it faces mounting pressures from the local population. Since Sultan Haitham has come to power, Oman has announced its intention to introduce an income tax on wealthy individuals in 202251 and has received $1 billion in aid from Qatar,52 both in an effort to reduce the country’s budget deficit. Further, Sultan Haitham appointed a new Council of Ministers in August 2020, streamlining the number of ministers from 26 to 19 and appointing two deputy prime ministers to act as advisors as he retains the role of prime minister.53 Sultan Haitham has therefore made some significant changes, particularly in terms of addressing Oman’s economic challenges, but appears to be maintaining policy continuity in the field of foreign relations in particular. EU Engagement The most recent meeting between the European Parliament and Oman took place in February 2020 in a European Parliament delegation to Oman, the first since the passing of Sultan Qaboos. Both sides agreed on the need to prioritise economic reforms, particularly through job creation and diversification away from hydrocarbon resources.54 Both sides also 51 “Oman to Introduce Income Tax From 2022 to Curb Budget Deficit,” Arabian Business, November 2, 2020, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/banking-finance/454024oman-to-bring-in-income-tax-from-2022-to-curb-budget-deficit. 52 “Qatar Gives Oman $1 Billion Cash Injection to Help Sultanate and Financial Crisis,” The New Arab, October 29, 2020, https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2020/ 10/29/qatar-gives-oman-1-billion-cash-injection. 53 Marc J. Sievers, “The Sultan of Oman’s New Cabinet Combines Continuity and Change,” Atlantic Council, August 19, 2020, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ menasource/the-sultan-of-omans-new-cabinet-combines-continuity-and-change/. 54 “Delegation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman on 23–27 February 2020,” European Parliament Press Release, March 4, 2020, https://www.eur oparl.europa.eu/cmsdata/197731/20200304_PR_DARP.EN.pdf.

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expressed hope for future deeper parliamentary cooperation.55 Further, the European Parliament expressed concerns about diminishing stability in the GCC and recognised Oman’s efforts to defuse tensions, as it, like Kuwait, maintained neutrality during the rift. Omani representatives also asked the European Parliament to waive the visa requirement for Omani citizens to European countries—a major issue for Omani citizens56 —and discussed human and social rights and environmental issues linked to climate change.57 Further, Yahya bin Mahfoodh Al Mantheri, Chairman of the State Council, and Khalid bin Hilal Al Mawali, Chairman of the Shura Council, met with representatives of the European Parliament in Muscat in efforts to advance deeper parliamentary cooperation between the EU and Oman.58 In 2017, the Oman Parliamentary Friendship Group was created within the European Parliament, and a delegation under the leadership of Romana Nicole Manescu visited Oman that year. Notably, the delegation visited Oman Oil Company, Oman Wangfang, the Royal Opera House, the Special Economic Zone of Duqm and Sultan Qaboos University, but not the parliament itself.59 The group did, however, meet with Sayyid Fahd of the upper house of the Omani legislature, who emphasised “the constructive role of the Council of Oman.”60 Dr Yahya bin Mahfoudh al-Mantheric, Chairman of the Consultative Council, also received the delegation and called for additional bilateral ties. David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has notably praised Omani foreign policy particularly its neutral stance in the GCC rift, its “role as a diplomatic bridge between

55 Ibid. 56 “Oman’s Request for Visa Waiver to EU Will be Discussed: Hannah,” Times of Oman, February 26, 2020, https://timesofoman.com/article/2811399/oman/omansrequest-for-visa-waiver-to-eu-will-be-discussed-hannah. 57 “Delegation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman on 23– February 27, 2020.” 58 “European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the Arab Peninsula,” European

Parliament , 2020, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/delegations/en/darp/home. 59 “Friends of Oman in Europe,” Oman Observer, December 16, 2017, https://www. omanobserver.om/friends-oman-europe/. 60 “Sayyid Fahd Receives European Delegation,” Times of Oman, December 17, 2017, https://timesofoman.com/article/124081?fbclid=IwAR2vXopTiPBzG2s6zhU-Uta dxb-OAQZB8498wJyNqxoQ8Gofh5dLu_cVjpA.

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Riyadh and Tehran,” and its part in facilitating official visits from both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Oman.61 On the European side, there seems to be much more emphasis on foreign policy areas of cooperation than engaging more deeply with domestic parliamentary or political life, perhaps due to the limited space provided to the legislature. On the Omani side, similarly, there does not seem to be great investment in fostering further intra-parliamentary ties, largely due to the primacy and urgency of economic concerns, as well as the lack of robust parliamentary power as seen in Kuwait.

Qatar Domestic Legislature Despite article one’s assertion that the Qatari government is “democratic” according to its revised constitution, passed by referendum in 2003,62 several clauses preserve the primacy of the amir and the ruling family.63 Article 67 grants the majority of executive powers to the amir, who is able to “override legislation, rule by decree, and even dissolve elected bodies.”64 The constitution bars the amir solely from “declaring martial law without cause and approval from the Advisory [Consultative] Council (Article 69), from engaging in offensive warfare (Article 71), and from issuing decrees without the eventual approval of the Advisory [Consultative] Council.”65 Notably, this Consultative Council is yet to be

61 David McAllister, “EU-Oman: All Roads Lead to Oman,” The Parliament Magazine, March 29, 2019, https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/opinion/eu-oman-allroads-lead-oman. 62 Ahmed Abdelkareem Saif, “Deconstructing Before Building: Perspectives on Democracy in Qatar,” in Reform in the Middle East Oil Monarchies, ed. Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Steven Wright (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2008), 110. 63 Article 1, Constitution of Qatar, Government of Qatar, 2003, https://portal. www.gov.qa/wps/wcm/connect/5a5512804665e3afa54fb5fd2b4ab27a/Constitution+ of+Qatar+EN.pdf?MOD=AJPERES. 64 Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman (Reading: Ithaca Press), 89. 65 Allen James Fromherz, Qatar: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 130.

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elected, though Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani announced in November 2020 that elections will be held the following year.66 The current Consultative (or Shura) Council, consisting of 35 members, each appointed for four years, has little independent authority and is solely “empowered to debate legislation and issue recommendations.”67 Most members of the Council hail from important allied families.68 Overall, then, the body is “used as an institutional means to keep notable Qataris connected to and vested in the political system.”69 Still, the previous Amir Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (r. 1995–2013) assigned the Council the task of preparing the state for elections.70 Articles 76–116 of the Constitution detail the duties and procedures of the state’s legislative authority—the yet to be elected 45-member Consultative Council. The body is to include 30 members elected for four-year terms and 15 members appointed by the amir. Its responsibilities include drafting legislation, questioning ministers, debating decisions made by the cabinet and reviewing the government’s proposed budgets.71 Curbing the council’s power, the amir can dissolve the legislature, yet must call for new elections within six months of dissolution; the system therefore resembles that of Kuwait.72 Though Qatar’s rulers have stressed the importance of the legislative body, elections have been postponed several times. The date for polls was originally set for 2005 and then was scheduled for 2013. Following the transition of authority from Shaykh Hamad to his son Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in June 2013, elections were delayed, to be postponed once again in 2017 following the blockade against Qatar; Shaykh Tamim in October 2019 announced that a committee to prepare for Consultative

66 Isabel Debre, “Qatar’s Emir Promises Shura Council Elections Next Year,” AP News, November 3, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/dubai-tamim-bin-hamad-al-thani-unitedarab-emirates-qatar-elections-b9ec7dd3275afed61936b94e70e9abb3. 67 Louay Bahry, “Elections in Qatar: A Window of Democracy Opens in the Gulf,” Middle East Policy 6, no. 4 (1999): 120. 68 Fromherz, 137. 69 Mehran Kamrava, “Royal Factionalism and Political Liberalization,” Middle East

Journal 63, no. 3 (2009): 417. 70 Ibid., 418. 71 Saif, 110–111. 72 Ibid., 110–111.

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Council elections was being formed, in anticipation of polls being held before the 2022 World Cup.73 Although the Consultative Council has not yet been elected, the first elections for the Central Municipal Council (CMC) were held in 1999. Qatari male and female nationals over 18 are eligible to elect the council’s 29 members. Due to the nature of the body as an arm of the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning, however, campaigns are apolitical and focus on “local issues such as road building, family life and improvement of public health and the environment.”74 The body itself is by no means a legislature; instead, it is “[r]esponsible for municipal affairs, agriculture, buildings and road, food quality, garbage disposal, and public health.”75 As in neighbouring countries, political blocs are illegal, and so those who contest seats on the CMC are independents without stated political agendas. On the whole, power is centralised in the ruling family. The form of government differs from the more representative system described by the Qatari Constitution. Certainly, “[t]he constitution may be a fine document, but it remains largely aspirational.”76 Nonetheless, the Qatari political leadership is committed to implementing legislative elections in 2021, which could change its ties with the European Parliament and foster further legislative engagement through EU ties with elected members of the population, granting a view of the state of affairs from broader segments of Qatari society. EU Engagement EU engagement with Qatar shifted largely due to the start of the blockade in June 2017, with Qatari delegations primarily focussed on securing European support. Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee in Qatar Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri spoke to the European Parliament 73 “Qatar Takes Step Toward First Shura Council Election: QNA Agency,” Reuters, October 31, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-politics/qatar-takes-steptoward-first-shura-council-election-qna-agency-idUSKBN1XA1CH. 74 Bahry, “Elections in Qatar,” 122–123. 75 Kamrava, “Royal Factionalism and Political Liberalization,” 416. 76 Jill Crystal, “Political Reform in Qatar,” in Political Change in the Arab Gulf States:

Stuck in Transition, ed. Mary Ann Tétreault, Gwenn Okruhlik, and Andrzej Kapiszewski (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011), 122.

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shortly after the start of the blockade to gain diplomatic support to end the siege and to urge an EU visit to victims of it.77 The European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Relations has acknowledged the role that Qatar has played in combatting terrorism, despite the complaints lodged against it by the blockading states who accuse the state of promoting terrorism.78 In April 2018, al-Marri again called on the European Parliament to include the blockade in its annual report on human rights and to take a clear position and actions.79 The CEO of Qatar Airways also spoke to the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism about helping to find a settlement for the blockade.80 In May 2018, European Parliament Resolution 2712 confirmed human rights violations linked to the ongoing blockade and called for an end to such violations in the resolution focussed on human rights violations as a whole.81 Notably, in March 2018, the first bilateral technical cooperation agreement was made between the European Union as a whole and Qatar to provide a framework within which to address issues of common concern. The first Senior Officials’ Meeting after the signing of that agreement took place in July 2019 in Brussels, with another to be held in Doha in 2020 and with a focus primarily on trade, investment, education and security issues.82

77 “Members of the European Parliament: Qatar Plays an Important Role in Fighting Terrorism,” National Human Rights Committee of Qatar, June 20, 2017, https://nhrc-qa.org/en/members-of-the-european-parliament-qatar-plays-animportant-role-in-fighting-terrorism/. 78 Ibid. 79 “Al Marri in a Hearing in the European Parliament: We Call on the International Community to Take Effective Measures Instead of Just Denouncing,” National Human Rights Committee of Qatar, April 28, 2018, https://nhrc-qa.org/en/al-marri-in-a-hea ring-in-the-european-parliament-we-call-on-the-international-community-to-take-effectivemeasures-instead-of-just-denouncing/. 80 “Qatar Airways CEO Calls on European Parliament to End the Siege,” Middle East Monitor, May 17, 2018, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180517-qatar-airwaysceo-calls-on-european-parliament-to-end-the-siege/. 81 “European Parliament Resolution on the Situation of Women’s Rights Defenders in Saudi Arabia,” European Parliament Resolution 2712, October 29, 2018, https://www. europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-8-2018-0262_EN.html. 82 “The EU and Qatar Hold Their First Senior Officials’ Meeting,” European Interest, July 4, 2019, https://www.europeaninterest.eu/article/eu-qatar-hold-first-senior-officialsmeeting/.

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In December 2018, Speaker of the Consultative Council Ahmed bin Abdulla bin Zaid al-Mahmoud met with a delegation of the European Parliament, when the speaker reiterated his appreciation of the parliament’s rejection of the blockade and denunciation of the violations imposed by the blockading states.83 He also spoke about enhancing ties between the Consultative Council and European Parliament.84 And, notably, the Consultative Council formally welcomed the decision issued by the European Parliament passed in June 2018 regarding the ongoing blockade.85 Intra-parliamentary interaction does exist but as yet remains limited and uninstitutionalised at present, with most meetings held solely at a high level. This dynamic may change after the Consultative Council becomes elected. On other levels, the EU-Qatar relationship improved over the course of the blockade. In April 2019, chairman of the Human Rights SubCommittee of the European Parliament affirmed that Qatar has become “a reference for human rights,” in particular praising the state for hosting the International Conference on National, Regional and International Mechanisms to Combat Impunity and Ensure Accountability under International Law.86 Despite these ties, a Qatari-European Friendship Association in the European Parliament was formed only in November 2019 with the aim of strengthening cooperation in cultural, economic and political fields.87 This body could help drive further intra-parliamentary cooperation moving forward, particularly once the Consultative Council becomes elected.

83 “Shura Council Speaker Meets European Parliament Team,” The Peninsula, December 17, 2018, https://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/17/12/2018/ShuraCouncil-Speaker-meets-European-Parliament-team. 84 Ibid. 85 “Advisory Council Welcomes European Parliament’s Decision on Human Rights Violations Caused by Qatar Siege,” The Shura Council State of Qatar, June 3, 2018, https://www.shura.qa/en/Pages/MediaCenter/News/03062018-1. 86 “European Parliament Official Hails Qatar’s Hosting of Meet on Impunity,” The Peninsula, April 16, 2019, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/16/04/2019/Eur opean-Parliament-official-hails-Qatar’s-hosting-of-meet-on-impunity. 87 “Qatari-European Friendship Association in EU Parliament Set Up,” The Peninsula, November 15, 2019, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/15/11/2019/QatariEuropean-Friendship-Association-in-EU-Parliament-set-up.

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Saudi Arabia Domestic Legislature Saudi Arabia, though a monarchy like its neighbours, has much stricter controls over independent political activity. The Consultative (or Shura) Council, established in 1993, consists of 150 members, all of whom are appointed by the king, and only has the power to provide “limited oversight and advisory input on some government decisions.”88 The body therefore can propose but not pass or enforce legislation, a power which is solely in the hands of the king; it can review the country’s budget and call in ministers for questioning and has included women since 2013. As of 2003, the Consultative Council gained entry into the inter-parliamentary union and so it is the body with which the European Parliament meets on inter-parliamentary missions. Although in previous years a larger number of members of the political elite were involved in decision-making, since King Salman took power in 2015 and altered succession to make his son Mohammed bin Salman crown prince as of 2017, power has become increasingly centralised in the hands of the young crown prince, who had the previous crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, once an important government advisor, arrested in 2020. Further, the crown prince oversaw the arrest and detention of 30 senior Saudi businesspeople and consultants in the Ritz Carlton in November 2017 as part of a so-called anti-corruption campaign.89 Under his tenure, the number of political prisoners and executions has also risen, leading to several complaints from human rights organisations and western governments alike.90

88 “Saudi Arabia: Background and US Relations,” Congressional Research Service, February 18, 2020, p. 6, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33533.pdf. 89 Ben Hubbard, David D. Kirkpatrick, Kate Kelly, and Mark Mazzetti, “Saudis Said to Use Coercion and Abuse to Seize Billions,” The New York Times, March 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/11/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-cor ruption-mohammed-bin-salman.html. 90 See, for instance, “The High Cost of Change: Repression Under Saudi Crown Prince Tarnishes Reforms,” Human Rights Watch, November 4, 2019, https://www. hrw.org/report/2019/11/04/high-cost-change/repression-under-saudi-crown-prince-tar nishes-reforms.

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Opportunities for grassroots political action and electoral politics are scant. Municipal elections, introduced in 2005 under King Abdullah, are the only (partially) elected entities in the kingdom and provide for at least limited discussion of government performance in individual municipalities. The third nationwide municipal council polls, after those held in 2011, were held in December 2015, with an expanded membership to two-thirds for the election and lowered voter registration from 21 to 18; women could vote and stand as candidates as of 2015. Those seats not filled through election were appointed by the Minister for Municipal and Rural Affairs.91 The positioning of these councils under such an apolitical ministry signals how limited their power is in affecting government policies and priorities at a national level. Further, due to the prohibition of political parties, all those who participated did so as independents. Turnout was reported to be 47% of eligible voters,92 and it is unclear when the next election will be held. Even the appointed Consultative Power appears to have a more limited role under the tenure of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. EU Engagement No formal bilateral relationship exists between Saudi Arabia and the European Union, whether at the parliamentary or any other level, which is surprising given that Saudi Arabia is a G20 member. Saudi Arabia also only opened its mission to the EU in Brussels in 2018, although the EU delegation to the GCC in Riyadh was created in 2004.93 As a result, the EU’s relationship with Saudi Arabia remains somewhat fragmented— particularly in the light of its recent human rights abuses detailed below

91 “Saudi Arabia: Background and US Relations,” Congressional Research Service, February 18, 2020, p. 16, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33533.pdf. 92 “Saudi Women Win Handful of Seats in Elections to Local Councils,” The Washington Post, December 13, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/? next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fworld%2fsaudi-women-win-handfulof-seats-in-elections-to-local-councils%2f2015%2f12%2f13%2f39e2444c-9ad1-11e5-aca61ae3be6f06d2_story.html. 93 “Advisory Council Welcomes European Parliament’s Decision on Human Rights Violations Caused by Qatar Siege,” The Shura Council State of Qatar, June 3, 2018, 6, https://www.shura.qa/en/Pages/MediaCenter/News/03062018-1.

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and documented by international organisations94 —with France and the UK having the strongest relationship.95 The most recent meeting between the European Parliament and Saudi Arabia, in February 2020, involved discussions of regional political and security challenges, as well as the importance of stability and respect for humanitarian law, particularly when it comes to Yemen, Syria and Libya.96 Members of the European Parliament delegation were said to have “frequently” raised the cases of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi and five imprisoned women’s rights defenders including Loujain al-Hathloul (freed in February 2021) in their discussions about women’s rights in particular.97 Although Saudi Arabia has, under King Salman’s tenure, granted women the right to drive and has removed the oppressive guardianship system that substantially hindered their freedom of movement, the fact that female activists who fought for these causes remain in prison is problematic. Further, members of the most recent European Parliament delegation highlighted again their opposition to the use of death penalty and emphasised the need to respect human rights.98 Prior to this visit, the European Parliament had issued several statements and resolutions decrying Saudi conduct. Most seriously, as of October 2018, members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning in strongest terms the torture and killing of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and called for an impartial international investigation into the crime.99 The resolution also reiterates

94 “Saudi Arabia 2019,” Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/countr ies/middle-east-and-north-africa/saudi-arabia/report-saudi-arabia/; “Saudi Arabia: Events of 2019,” Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-cha pters/saudi-arabia#. 95 Ibid. 96 “Delegation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman on 23–27 February 2020,” European Parliament Press Release, March 4, 2020, https://www.eur oparl.europa.eu/cmsdata/197731/20200304_PR_DARP.EN.pdf. 97 Ibid. 98 European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the Arab Peninsula. 99 “MEPs Demand End to EU Arms Export to Saudi Arabia,” European Parliament

Plenary Session Press Release, October 25, 2018, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/ en/press-room/20181018IPR16536/meps-demand-end-to-eu-arms-exports-to-saudiarabia.

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the parliament’s previous call, from earlier in October, to impose an EUside arms embargo on Saudi Arabia100 ; the previous demand had arisen due to Saudi actions in Yemen—which members of parliament called on all parties to cease to allow for human rights abuses and urged that humanitarian law violations be investigated.101 Members of the European Parliament also, in the more recent resolution, went so far as to call on member states to be ready to impose targeted sanctions against Saudi individuals once an investigation was completed.102 In February 2019, the European Parliament also demanded that EU institutions “look into the lack of listings of Saudi Arabia within the EU transparency register,” after it paid the College of Europe, not listed on the register, to set up private meetings with MEPs to discuss EU-Saudi ties.103 In January 2020, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir rejected inquiries from the parliament about human rights in the country, telling members of the European Parliament that Riyadh does not “accept lectures” about its legal system after he faced a series of questions about human rights and the imprisonment of political figures like Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia.104 Further voicing its concern with a worsening Saudi human rights record, the European Parliament in October 2020 issued a resolution, signed by 65 members calling on the EU to downgrade its attendance at the Saudi-hosted G20 summit by withdrawing the participation of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, due to human rights concerns. Although the EU did not downgrade its G20 participation, the European Parliament viewed the summit as “an opportunity for the EU to show coherence with its values and to not legitimize the impunity for

100 Ibid. 101 “MEPs Condemn Attacks on Civilians, Including Children, in Yemen,” European Parliament Plenary Session Press Release, October 4, 2018, https://www.europarl.europa. eu/news/en/press-room/20180926IPR14408/meps-condemn-attacks-on-civilians-includ ing-children-in-yemen. 102 “MEPs Demand End to EU Arms Export to Saudi Arabia.” 103 Nikolaj Nielsen, “EU Parliament Demands Saudi Lobby Transparency,” EU

Observer, February 14, 2019, https://euobserver.com/institutional/144168. 104 “‘Stop Lecturing Us’: Saudi Diplomat Dismisses Human Rights Concerns by EU Lawmakers,” Middle East Eye, January 21, 2020, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ stop-lecturing-saudi-diplomat-dismisses-questions-human-rights-eu-lawmakers.

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the crimes committed in Saudi Arabia.”105 We see in the EU-Saudi relationship a serious lack of trust, with the executive power, which is the only branch of government that has real political influence, appearing largely disinterested in what the European Parliament has to say.

United Arab Emirates Domestic Legislature The UAE differs from its neighbours in that it has a federal system of seven relatively autonomous emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Notwithstanding its unique federal system, the UAE resembles its neighbours in that it remains “essentially tribal and authoritarian.”106 Nonetheless, the Emirati constitution commits the union to progress “‘towards a complete representative democratic rule,’ but precedes that with the observation that the newly created federal governance must exist ‘in harmony with the emirates’ existing conditions and potential,’ clearly indicating that traditional social and cultural norms would shape the new state’s evolution.”107 The federal system described by the Emirati constitution is hierarchical, with the president, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, and vice president, the ruler of Dubai, holding central authority.108 While all emirates retain their individual ruling families, the president is universally considered the leader of the federation, while the vice president also holds considerable political power, namely presiding over the Council of Ministers, or Cabinet,109

105 Alistair Walsh, “European Parliament Urges EU to Snub Saudi G20 Summit,” DW , October 8, 2020, https://www.dw.com/en/european-parliament-urges-eu-to-snub-saudig20-summit/a-55206586. 106 William A. Rugh, “The United Arab Emirates: What Are the Sources of Its Stability?” Middle East Policy 5, no. 3 (1997): 18. 107 Malcolm C. Peck, “Formation and Evolution of the Federation and Its Institutions,”

in Perspectives on the United Arab Emirates, ed. Edmund A. Ghareeb and Ibrahim al-Abed (London: Trident Press, 1999), 130. 108 Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transition (London: Longman, 1982), 376. 109 Christopher M. Davidson, The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 204.

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and serving as president in his absence.110 The president and vice president are chosen from the Supreme Council of Rulers, comprising the leaders of the seven emirates, for five-year terms and can be re-elected. As head of the Council of Rulers, the president gains a great deal of authority when that body is not in session.111 The president also serves as ceremonial head of state and retains the last word in selection of the cabinet, while maintaining authority of “supervising the implementation of Union laws, decrees and decisions through the Council of Ministers of the Union and the competent Ministers.”112 The Federal National Council (FNC), the UAE’s only elected body, is sometimes described as the legislative branch of government, though it holds little independent authority. The Council of Ministers determines which issues the FNC can debate and is not legally bound to heed the FNC’s suggestions, making the council little more than a forum for debate.113 The council itself contains 40 members from all seven emirates, half of whom are elected to serve four-year terms and the other half of whom are appointed by the Supreme Council of Rulers. The FNC in reality “resembles more closely a traditional consultative diwan [council] or majlis [assembly] than a modern representative body.”114 Further, the FNC is selected by an electoral college that includes “among the leading merchant families and tribal elders, who had always had the confidence of their people and were seen as the community leaders.”115 In the first polls in 2006, the electoral college contained about one per cent of the total Emirati population of voting age, but was expanded in 2011 to about 13% of the Emirati voting population again in 2015 to 224,279 members and most recently in 2019 to 337,738 members. Reference to “Electoral college list for 2019 FNC elections 110 Article

51, United Arab Emirates Constitution, Federal National Council, 2010 Edition, https://www.uaecabinet.ae/English/UAEGovernment/Pages/Constitution OfUAE.aspx. 111 Heard-Bey, 3 From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 76. 112 Article 54, Qtd. in Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 374. 113 Ali Mohammad Khalifa, The United Arab Emirates: United in Fragmentation

(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 48. 114 Peck, 131. 115 Frauke Heard-Bey, “The United Arab Emirates: A Quarter Century of Federation,”

in Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration, ed. Michael Hudson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 135.

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announced,” Emirates News Agency, 30 June 2019, http://wam.ae/en/ details/1395302771137.116 As a result, the elections are less a means of understanding public opinion or being a representative institution but rather granting elites access to state resources and political power—particularly due to the fact that political parties remain banned, as elsewhere in the GCC.117 Additionally, according to law, Abu Dhabi and Dubai each are allotted eight seats in the FNC, while the other emirates have either six or four seats each; this elected body therefore further institutionalises the supremacy of Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the UAE’s federal arrangement. EU Engagement The FNC was surprisingly outspoken in 2012 in its criticism of a European Parliament human rights report that criticised the UAE for “the conditions of migrant workers, the status of women, and the use of the death penalty.”118 The FNC charged that the Emirati authorities should have been provided an opportunity to respond to these criticisms and said it was “shocked at the way in which the EU Parliament tackled such a sensitive issue without approaching the UAE through its constitutional, executive and legislative institutions as well as its social organisations.”119 As this quotation implies, there had been little cooperation between the European Parliament and FNC at that point. Further, demonstrating the FNC’s alignment with broader UAE policy, Emirati Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash echoed the body’s concerns, calling the report “biased and prejudiced.”120 Since that time, and perhaps because of the negative reception of the European Parliament’s report in the FNC, there has been greater cooperation, at least between the FNC speaker and European Parliament delegations. In May 2016, the FNC Speaker Amal al-Qubaisi met with Member of European Parliament Silvana Koch-Mehrin who founded and 116 Courtney Freer, “Clients or Challengers?: Tribal Constituents in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2019): 17. 117 Ibid., 17. 118 “FNC Shocked by ‘Baseless’ European Human Rights Report,” The National,

October 29, 2012, https://www.thenational.ae/uae/fnc-shocked-by-baseless-europeanhuman-rights-report-1.572575. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid.

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chairs Women in Parliaments in Brussels.121 Al-Qubaisi is the first female speaker of an elected body in the Arab world and so has been an important interlocutor in terms of advancing women’s rights. In October 2017, the European Parliament met with Amal al-Qubaisi at a meeting of the EU-UAE Parliamentary Friendship Group, which had been established in 2013; during this meeting the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to further strengthen ties between the two.122 Despite these meetings, there appears to be little intra-parliamentary cooperation at a broader level, and recent European Parliament resolutions have acknowledged human rights abuses in the UAE, which will likely hinder the furtherance of such ties. In October 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution about the arrest of human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, who was imprisoned in March 2017 on charges of insulting authority; the parliament “strongly condemns the harassment, persecution and detention of Ahmed Mansoor as well as of all other human rights defenders solely on the basis of their human rights work and their use of their right to freedom of expression both offline and online”—a strong indictment of recent arrests in the UAE.123 In January 2019, a delegation from the FNC led by Amal alQubaisi visited the European Parliament.124 Al-Qubaisi met with Federica Mogherini to discuss EU-UAE cooperation.125 Mogherini, for her part, praised the Emirati role in fighting terrorism and promoting stability, stating that “[w]e always welcome the UAE’s policies and its efforts to strengthen security and stability in the region, including, surprisingly in

121 “Amal Al Qubaisi Meets Former Vice President of European Parliament,” Abu Dhabi News, May 3, 2016, https://www.abudhabinews.net/news/243731639/amal-alqubaisi-meets-former-vice-president-of-european-parliament. 122 Samir Salama, “EU Parliament Reaffirms Support to UAE in Fight Against Terrorism,” Gulf News, October 29, 2017, https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/euparliament-reaffirms-support-to-uae-in-fight-against-terrorism-1.2115176. 123 “The UAE, Notably the Situation of Human Rights Defender Ahmed Mansoor,” European Parliament Resolution 2862, October 4, 2018, https://www.europarl.europa. eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2018-0376_EN.html. 124 “FNC Delegation to Visit European Parliament,” Gulf Today, January 7, 2019, https://www.pressreader.com/bahrain/gulf-today/20190107/281560881930048. 125 Ibid.

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Yemen, as well as the areas of development, youth and women’s empowerment, social communication, tolerance and coexistence.”126 European Parliament President Antonio Tajani echoed similar sentiments, in particular expressing appreciation for Emirati humanitarian efforts through the Emirates Red Crescent and urging greater cooperation in that field.127 AlQubaisi visited Brussels and met with the President of the EP as well.128 As in Bahrain, then, we see a marked difference between the rhetoric from the European Parliament itself and from executive leaders of the EU. In fact, in February 2019, two victims of alleged Emirati human rights violations attended a hearing at the European Parliament, which will likely inform future parliamentary human rights reports.129

Conclusion: Opportunities and Challenges Moving Forward The largest obstacle to greater multilateral ties between June 2017 and January 2021 was the continued rift within the GCC countries themselves. In the existing environment, however, and perhaps especially in the light of the shared challenges throughout the region in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, some areas for potential multilateral cooperation in the intra-parliamentary field are emerging. These include discussing both across the GCC and with members of European Parliament means of implementing austerity measures while protecting society’s most vulnerable, as well as finding ways of effectively messaging lockdown and social

126 “FNC, European Parliament Discuss Cooperation Between UAE, EU,” Emirates 24/7 , January 9, 2019, https://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/fnc-european-par liament-discuss-cooperation-between-uae-eu-2019-01-09-1.677778. 127 “European Parliament President Calls for Strengthening Cooperation with UAE in Humanitarian, Relief Work,” Business Wire, January 9, 2019, https://www.businesswire. com/news/home/20190109005738/en/European-Parliament-President-Calls-Strengthe ning-Cooperation-UAE. 128 “European Parliament President Commends UAE’s Tolerance Model, Role as Supporter of International Stability and Security,” Business Wire, January 10, 2019, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190110005589/en/European-Par liament-President-Commends-UAE’s-Tolerance-Model. 129 “European Parliament Hears Testimonies of Victims of UAE Human Rights Violations,” International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE (ICFUAE), February 20, 2019, https://icfuae.org.uk/news/european-parliament-hears-testimoniesvictims-uae-human-rights-violations.

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distancing measures. Cooperation could also advance efforts to nationalise workforces in a sustainable way as well as to care for migrant worker populations who seem to be particularly at risk. Multilateral initiatives on such apolitical issues that are critical to legislatures and legislators today represent one opportunity for collaboration. In terms of bilateral ties, they seem to be most harmed in those countries where European Parliament delegations have been critical of human rights abuses, particularly Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In such states, engagement with elected officials, rather than merely with the unelected political leadership, would therefore be particularly useful in getting a more nuanced view of these countries and the challenges facing them. Even in countries that lack politically powerful parliamentary bodies, engagement is still worthwhile, since this will make European Parliament members better acquainted with the problems facing the individual GCC countries and with the means in which they are being addressed or left unresolved. It should therefore become a priority to meet with local legislators and members of local elected bodies, even if they are apolitical, in addition to the unelected political leadership, to gain a broader, more grassroots understanding of how inter-parliamentary relations can have a notable impact. European Parliament is uniquely placed to enhance ties beyond ruling elites, and, as long as its members are provided access inside the countries in question, they should make an effort to expand links beyond the leadership of elected bodies, so that broader issues linked to human rights, economic well-being and even foreign policy can be approached with a greater understanding informed by broaderbased discussions. In places where access is blocked or where criticism is disregarded, however, engagement with diaspora populations in Europe may help inform European Parliament’s relations with parliaments and leaderships across the region. As demonstrated above, the GCC hosts a variety of political systems, ranging from the more participatory Kuwaiti environment to the increasingly authoritarian Saudi system. Due to these variations, the European Parliament has negotiated different relationships with each member state and with their associated legislative bodies. These relationships have suffered across the board, however, due to recent human rights abuses in the GCC, particularly in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In those cases, we see, as Matthiesen has highlighted, the extent to which European Parliament’s opinions differ compared to those of the executive leadership of the European Union

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who hope to maintain strategic ties with GCC member states due to their security and economic importance. If political space continues to tighten, it is likely that greater pressure will be put on states like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and that any embryonic inter-parliamentary connections will suffer. In states like Kuwait and potentially Qatar, liaising with elected legislative bodies can provide an important means of deepening relationships at a human, as well as institutional, level. The COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity, as described above, for greater EU-GCC cooperation, since the economic consequences have been truly global. Fostering economic collaboration in particular could be a means of enhancing intra-parliamentary ties, particularly since these would not touch on the more politically sensitive issues of human rights and political freedoms.

EU Approaches to the Gulf Crisis Christian Koch

The EU has struggled to find an effective response to the Gulf crisis since news first broke in June 2017 that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt were cutting their relations with Qatar and imposing stringent economic and political restrictions upon Qatar. On the one hand, the EU reacted with a sense of alarm that tensions in the region could deteriorate to the point of a wider regional conflict. Europe’s offer for a possible role in mediating the crisis within the GCC did not find any recipients and the limitations of Europe as a geostrategic actor with influence in critical regions were once again exposed. On the other, European insistence of a policy of neutrality and taking a balanced approach to the crisis in order not to endanger its own economic and commercial interests did not increase the EU’s value for the respective GCC partners who could by-and-large ignore European calls for a quick resolution to the GCC split. The result was a deepening of the bilateral nature of the

C. Koch (B) Gulf Research Center Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] Overijse, Belgium © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_9

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European-Arab Gulf relationship at the expense of the multilateral GCCEU framework. In what form the multilateral angle can be revitalized will remain to be seen. The reasons for the lack of influence that Europe was able to bring to the table to resolve the Gulf crisis can be found in a number of factors which mostly pre-date the crisis and which have characterized the overall EU-GCC relationship. One is the structural set-up of institutional relations between the EU and the GCC where there continues to be a preference for bilateral approaches from both sides vis-à-vis one another rather than a more centralized multilateral approach. The lack of a common EU policy approach can clearly be seen when it comes to the GCC states. A second factor is the fact that EU-GCC ties have failed to deliver on expectations thus leading both sides to re-evaluate the nature and direction of their relationship. The inability to bring Free-Trade Area negotiations to a successful conclusion as well as the decision not to proceed with the Joint Action Programme (JAP) following only an initial phase of 3 years from 2010 to 2013 resulted in a sombre analysis by both the EU and the GCC of the realities of their relations and what can be achieved. The crisis within the GCC between Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the one hand and Qatar on the other has further strengthened the above-mentioned trends. Multilateral cooperation has been largely put on the backburner and there is currently no prioritization visible by either side to make a renewed effort to re-vitalize those ties. In the meantime, the preference for bilateralism that has always largely defined and prevailed in terms of EU-GCC relations has been further reinforced. This is most clearly visible in terms of the Cooperation Agreements (CA) that the EU has signed with four GCC member states (Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) since the June 2017 events. While there are still discussions being held at the multilateral level, the EU’s ties with the GCC states primarily take place individually rather than collectively. The EU also does not see a role for itself in terms of mediating between the GCC parties in an effort to try to bridge the existing differences despite the fact that the crisis has paralysed the functioning of the GCC as a whole. Rather than taking a pro-active role, the EU had adopted a position of neutrality while hoping that mediation efforts such as those by Kuwait can ultimately bring about a resolution.

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Given its responses and limitations, can Europe re-discover a role for itself that can salvage what is currently left of the GCC? What does this mean for the broader GCC-EU relationship? What is Europe’s overall position in the changing Gulf regional environment and what does this mean for European influence and impact in the region? In addition to addressing those questions, this paper will look into the responses brought about by the EU and its member states to the developments within the GCC since 2017, especially in light of the resolution to the crisis over Qatar initiated at the GCC’s Al-Ula summit held in January 2021, analyse those responses in the framework of the overall set-up of EU-GCC ties and then draw conclusions in terms of how the consequences of the crisis will impact the future trajectory of relations between the EU and the GCC.

Framing the EU-GCC Relationship At the outset, it is important to provide a framework through which to understand the dynamics defining EU-GCC relations. Overall, it can be argued that relations between the GCC states and Europe are marked by degrees of dichotomy between ambition and reality. On the one hand, Brussels and individual European capitals recognize that it is necessary to engage with the GCC on a strategic level. Not only does Europe want to keep its lucrative economic relations with this part of the world intact, it also sees the GCC as an important moderate force that needs to be engaged with as the Middle East is experiencing turbulence and violence on an unprecedented scale. Similarly, the GCC states want to maintain their historic ties to Europe in particular with the E3 of the UK, France and Germany given the role that the countries play both within Europe and as members of the wider international community. In terms of their own efforts to diversify their international partnerships, the GCC states have also begun to reach out to other EU member states, for example, to countries in Eastern Europe to establish additional links in particular when it comes to economic and investment ties. Yet, both Europe and the GCC remain hesitant and unsure of how to structure their relations in a mutually beneficial way. A key element is the fact that the development of ties is not necessarily a priority for either side. While the GCC is on the EU’s map, it remains largely on the periphery even as far as the Middle East is concerned where developments in Syria or Libya, for example, are viewed as greater pressing concerns.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to push GCC issues further into the background as much of the emphasis has shifted to ensuring Europe’s economic recovery. The list of priorities of the German EU presidency for the second half of 2020 underlines this.1 When it comes to the GCC states, individual EU member states pursue their own strategies, based on national interest, that often stand in contradiction to the prerogatives that Brussels would like to see enacted. For the GCC states, Europe competes with others for the GCC’s attention. On security issues, the United States remains the preferred choice while economically the GCC’s focus has turned increasingly towards Asia and as a result somewhat away from Europe. The net result of these dichotomies is that ties between the GCC and Europe are defined by disconnected lines of cooperation with no consensus either within the EU or the GCC on where the relationship should be heading on the broader multilateral level. In the context of lack of prioritization and sense of direction, the issue of perceptions in terms of Europe’s role in the region is also of consequence. Overall, the European track record in the Middle East and the Gulf region in recent years is by-and-large a disappointing one. In many regards, Europe remains a bystander that deals with the symptoms of the various crises in the Middle East but without fundamentally impacting on any of its developments.2 When it comes to the Middle East Peace Process, Europe has been identified as a payer and not a player.3 In terms of the nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Europe has struggled to keep the arrangement afloat following the withdrawal of the United States under the US Trump

1 Christina Goßner and Philipp Grüll, “German EU Presidency: Government Sets Priorities as ‘Motor and Moderator of Europe’,” Euractiv, June 24, 2020, https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/news/german-eu-presidency-govern ment-sets-priorities-as-motor-and-moderator-of-europe/. 2 This section draws in part of the analysis provided in my chapter on “EU Policy in the Middle East: Unfulfilled Aspirations,” in Routledge Handbook of International Relations in the Middle East, ed. Shahram Akbarzadeh (London: Routledge, 2019), especially 222– 227. 3 Søren Dosenrode and Anders Stuckjær, The European Union and the Middle East

(London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 150–151, https://books.google.be/books? id=SLUXg_NrxA8C&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=europe+middle+east+payer+not+pla yer&source=bl&ots=yuMxwn1i3c&sig=ACfU3U3_zF63EaH6TzjvJ8GlNG5k2mLvDA& hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwibyvWng5jqAhUJ4aQKHRV1A0QQ6AEwD3oECAkQAQ# v=onepage&q&f=false.

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administration. It took over two years for the EU to process the first financial transaction through its INSTEX instrument as a way to deliver on the sanction relief allocated to Iran as part of the agreement.4 While Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif has called on Europe to fulfil its obligations, he has also stated his belief that Europe is “incapable” of bypassing US sanctions.5 Even though the incoming Biden administration has indicated wanting to rejoin the JCPOA, the future of the nuclear agreement remain in doubt. Europe falls short of many of the expectation regarding its role because its policies are caught between several contrasts. The first is the already mentioned difference between the multilateral approach of the EU and the individual national interest-based perspective put forward by member states. While Europe through the EU and Brussels puts forward policies structured and set within a multilateral approach, individual EU countries pursue their own relationship with Gulf partners based on primarily on national interest-based calculations. The balancing act can be seen in particular when it comes to the normative approach of the EU, for example when it comes to the rule of law and human rights, via-a-vis the more transactional economic and security interests of individual European states. EU policy as a result becomes the lowest common denominator outcome of an attempt to bridge the national-multilateral gap. Moreover, not only do EU member states largely keep the prerogative of initiative within the national capitals but recipient countries of the EU policy action, in this case the GCC states, also continue to prefer to conduct their relations bilaterally rather than with Brussels. A second contrast that is clearly evident when it comes to the GCC states is the one between European policies towards the Middle East and those of other external powers that have their own interests in the region. Although Europe tends to be more directly impacted by developments in the Middle East due to its geographical proximity, Europe is largely unwilling to match other actors such as the United States or Russia in terms of their overall strategic reach into the Gulf. In turn, Europe finds 4 Alexandra Brozowski, “EU’s INSTEX Mechanism Facilitates First Transaction with Pandemic-Hit Iran,” Euractiv, April 1, 2020, https://www.euractiv.com/section/globaleurope/news/eus-instex-mechanism-facilitates-first-transaction-with-pandemic-hit-iran/. 5 “Iran’s Zarif Calls Europe Incapable of Bypassing US Sanctions,” Agence France Press, April 3, 2019, https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/irans-zarif-calls-europe-incapablebypassing-us-sanctions.

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itself largely in a reactive position with key decisions and policy directives being taken elsewhere.6 A direct consequence of trying to balance different interests is that European efforts to promote medium- to longterm change and reform in the Middle East as well as in the Gulf are seconded to a securitization of policies in terms of maintaining shortterm order and stability. This very much applies to the Gulf region where the United States continue to play the role of the main external power providing security to its GCC allies. For Europe, however, the result is an overall discrepancy between what Europe says and what Europe does in the Middle East. The third is the simple complexity with which the Middle East strategic environment confronts Europe which in turn often overwhelms Europe’s toolbox of responsive policy measures. On the one hand, the challenges and threats posed by the Middle East to Europe have increased substantially both geographically and thematically in recent decades. In addition to traditional issues such as terrorism and proliferation concerns, sectarianism, state failure, refugee and migratory flows, renewed forms of authoritarianism, corruption and environmental degradation have been added to the complex regional security agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic is adding another factor to the equation. On the other, the GCC states have pursued a more activist foreign and security role no longer simply limited to their immediate neighbourhood. Europe thus finds itself challenged with additional actors whose interest need to be considered and whose wider engagement across a range of issues needs to be accommodated. This is in addition to the continued competition among external actors exemplified by the expanding role being played by Russia and China’s advancement through its One Road, One Belt initiative.7 In the light of the discussion about a possible drawback of the United States from the Gulf region, the GCC states have further focused their attention on the tools and instruments available at Europe’s disposal to respond to the shifting dynamics taking place. The incentives of economic 6 See Rosemary Hollis, “Europe and the Middle East,” in Louise Fawcett, ed. International Relations of the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 348. 7 On the Middle East as a penetrated region, see L. Carl Brown, International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).

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ties and development assistance from Europe to help in the strengthening of Middle Eastern economies no longer represent a sufficient instrument that can tie those governments to European policy preferences. While with regard to the GCC, the issue of economic dependency has never been in the forefront, the fact that the GCC states have emerged in recent decades as economic powerhouses of their own has turned the incentives further into the direction of the GCC with GCC investments in Europe playing just as important a role for European economic well-being than the other way around. The value-added of the EU’s role in the GCC states is increasingly unclear. All of the above factors and impediments need to be kept in mind when analysing the EU’s position towards the crisis within the GCC. While the EU does remain committed to see the GCC as a functioning organization that can contribute to better regional integration and more effective multilateralism, the constraints and contradictory policies in place have acted as an obstacle towards achieving those objectives. An additional factor has been the incompatibility of the formal institutional set-up of the EU and the GCC in particular in terms of decision-making and policy formulation. As stated before, the EU’s bottom-up approach to policy formulation and implementation simply does not match with the Gulf’s top-down approach, a situation that continues to define the current set of ties and their associated difficulties.8 It is also what prevents a structural as well as truly functional partnership from emerging. The structural deficiencies show up clearly when looking at the actual developments that characterize EU-GCC relations in recent decades. Throughout the relationship, it can be argued that the push for greater regional integration and therefore building ties within the multilateral framework has always come more from Europe and the EU institutions than from the GCC side. It was Germany’s Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher that originally promoted the idea of a GCCEU Cooperation Agreement in order to take advantage of the emergence of the GCC in the 1980s as a way to find a substitution for the stagnating Euro-Arab Dialogue of the time, as well as to address European

8 Christian Koch, “Constructing a Viable EU-GCC Partnership,” Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, London School of Economics, no. 34, January 2014, p. 14, https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55282/1/Constructing-a-viableU-GCC-relationship.pdf.

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concerns about its energy security. Yet, following the signing of the Cooperation Agreement in 1988, the European emphasis shifted to securing new markets for European products and services instead on looking at the GCC as a potential mechanism through which to promote greater regional integration and stability. There was also no indication during the first fifteen years of the Agreement that Europe would engage with the GCC states as on-par political actors that could contribute to the success of European policies in the wider region. The first decade of the 2000s witnessed new momentum towards expanding GCC-EU ties. The GCC’s conclusion of a Customs Union in 2003 and the subsequent expansion of GCC discussion on closer economic and institutional relations related to the stated goal of establishing a common market based in large part on the European model gave new optimism to seeing the GCC develop as a functioning and integrating regional organization. Free-Trade Area negotiation between the EU and the GCC made significant progress to the point that only the issue of export duties prevented a successful conclusion to those talks. Relations also expanded into areas outside the pre-dominant trade and economic arena with the EU and the GCC agreeing on a Joint Action Programme (JAP) at the 2010 Joint Ministerial Meeting in Luxembourg in 2010 outlining 14 areas of functional cooperation.9 In addition, relations began to expand to more concerted political and security discussions based on a recognition within European circles that the Gulf was an area of increased strategic importance for Europe and that within the region the GCC stood apart as an organization with whom the EU needed to be engaged with in a deeper and broader sense. A European parliamentary resolution of March 24, 2011 underlining the Gulf region as containing security challenges with global and regional implications, acknowledged both the GCC as “the only stable regional organisation based on multilateralism and cooperation” and that “the GCC member states play a key role in the global arena and thus have interests in common with the EU in relation to international stability and global economic governance.” As a result, the resolution called on the EU “to develop a strategy for the region aimed at strengthening its ties with the GCC, supporting the regional integration process, and encouraging 9 The Joint Action Programme can be found under: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/arc hives/delegations/gulf_countries/documents/eu_gulf_countries/eu_gcc_joint_action_pro gramme_en.pdf.

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bilateral relations with the GCC member states.”10 One direct response was the commitment of the EU to expand their representation in the region resulting in the opening of a second EU delegation office in the United Arab Emirates in 2013.11 The period of optimism was not to last however and the momentum that had been achieved was soon to dissipate. EU-GCC Free-Trade Area talks broke down as the GCC side refused to consider any exemption on export duties. There was also the feeling in Gulf capitals that the EU was moving the goalposts on an agreement with new conditions as talks continued. In 2008, the GCC withdrew from talks and they have remained frozen since. The 2010 JAP document was unable to produce concrete initiatives. When the programme came up for renewal after the initial three-year period, the GCC refused to consider an extension. Political relations also became more contentious as the Arab Spring spread throughout the Middle East beginning in late 2010 putting the GCC states and the EU on different trajectories in terms of both the upheaval’s developments and its wider implications. European hopes to breaking through the authoritarian structures in many Middle Eastern countries quickly found themselves confronted by the determination of GCC states to prevent protest from spreading and prioritizing notions of stability and security over the opening of political systems. One result was that in 2014, the annual EU-GCC joint ministerial meeting was cancelled for the first time since the 1988 Cooperation Agreement after the GCC states felt that the EU had not taken a balanced position during a discussion on Bahrain at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Throughout this period, the overall dichotomy of the EU’s approach towards the GCC remained in place. While bilateral relations flourished with numerous trade deals being struck between individual EU and GCC member states, which in turn resulted in a rising EU-GCC trade balance, the effectiveness of multilateral ties began to weaken. The increasing rifts within the GCC which became apparent in March 2014 when Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE first withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar over complaints of interference in their internal affairs would further

10 European Parliament, “EU Relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council,” Resolution of March 24, 2011 (2012/C 247 E/01), https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/ publication/f5ebe073-e866-11e1-9e1b-01aa75ed71a1. 11 The first EU delegation office in Riyadh opened in 2004.

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lessen the GCC states’ appetite to invest heavily in an expansion in EUGCC ties. Efforts to bring FTA negotiations back to the table fell on deaf ears within the majority of the GCC states. From the EU side, there was very little reaction to the decision by the three GCC states to break diplomatic relations. By the time of the subsequent resolution to the crisis through the Riyadh agreement in November 2014, the EU merely welcomed the development and proceeded with their institutional meetings as if nothing happened. During the 25th EU-GCC Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting held in Brussels in July 2016, EU and GCC Ministers in fact “underlined the importance of further strengthening their ties, to serve as a solid and effective foundation for sustainable regional and international stability and security.” Furthermore, the two sides “expressed their wish to further enhance their political dialogue and cooperation.”12 The situation at the eve of the June 2017 crisis was thus one of continued engagement without any substantive progress in terms of multilateral ties. In addition, the public statement failed to acknowledge the need for a changed approach in the light of the changing strategic environment emerging in the Gulf region following the Arab Spring and the disastrous regional implications as a result of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. As far as the EU was concerned, it remained very much in a reactive position vis-à-vis Gulf developments.

The EU Responses to the GCC Crisis With the eruption of the crisis in June 2017, it would become apparent that the crisis within the GCC was much deeper than initially anticipated. In early 2017, EU Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen during a visit to the GCC had still spoken of a new “political momentum” that could also favour the re-start of EU-GCC FTA negotiations.13 In this connection, the initial response by the EU to the drastic actions announced in June 2017 against Qatar were similar to responses put forward earlier in terms of calling all parties to act with restraint and to 12 The co-chair’s statement of the meeting can be found under https://www.consil ium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/07/18-fac-gcc/?utm_source=dsms-auto& utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Co-Chairs%27%20Statement%20-%2025th%20EUGCC%20Joint%20Council%20and%20Ministerial%20Meeting%20. 13 “Europe Hopes to Restart Gulf Free Trade Talks,” Saudi Gazette, February 2, 2017, https://www.saudigazette.com.sa/article/172242.

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have the issue resolved through dialogue. This was the consistent message being carried to GCC leaders not only by EU institutions headed by the High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs Frederica Mogherini but also by the Foreign Ministers of the EU member states with France, Germany and the UK taking a leading role. In addition, the prevailing assessment within EU circles remained the rift would within an acceptable period of time be overcome and that relations on the EU-GCC level could resume to their regular cycle of institutional meetings. In extensive remarks given by the EU’s High Representative Frederica Mogherini in on June 9, 2017, she reflected on the many aspects of the overall EU-GCC relationship. Stating at the outset the need to avoid further escalation and engaging in political dialogue, the High Representative stressed that the EU has good relations with all of the GCC states and will make every effort to keep those ties at a high satisfactory level. She further laid out why regional cooperation should be seen as beneficial in terms of regional stability, economic investments and trade, as well as promoting and maintaining community interlinkages among Gulf societies. Interestingly, she placed the crisis in a broader framework by arguing that “what happens there is relevant for every part of the world” suggesting not only possible repercussions for the wider Middle East but also underlining the importance the EU attaches to regional integration as an example for others to follow. The full statement thus succinctly reflects the many aspects of EU thinking that are prevalent not only for the GCC but beyond as well.14 At a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the end of June 2017, Mogherini reiterated her initial points stating that regional tensions should be tackled through political engagement “and not by imposing unilateral measures.” She went on to say: “All together, we encourage de-escalation and most of all we encourage all Gulf countries to engage in political dialogue without preconditions accepting the mediation role of Kuwait.” She stated that the EU is “ready to help, assist and accompany these mediation efforts in all ways that might be requested … the European Union has the firm intention to keep strong relationships and

14 European External Action Service, Remarks by the High Representative/VicePresident Federica Mogherini at the doorstep following her meeting with the Foreign Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, June 9, 2017, https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/27951/remarkshigh-representativevice-president-federica-mogherini-doorstep-following-her-meeting_en.

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ties with all the Gulf countries and we hope that they will manage to restore good working relations among them.”15 In addition to the statements coming out of the EU, EU member states issued their own declaration calling for restraint and a resolution to the dispute.16 German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that: “We are convinced that now is the hour of diplomacy and we must talk to each other … Along with our American colleagues, but above all our colleagues in the region, we must try to find solutions, especially lifting the sea and air blockades.”17 French President Emmanuel Macron called “the embargo measures affecting the people of Qatar, in particular families and students, to be lifted as quickly as possible” and “expressed his concern over the tensions that threaten regional stability, undermining the political resolution of crises and our collective fight against terrorism.”18 Europeans coupled their statements with visits to the region. German Foreign Minister Gabriel, the UK’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and the EU’s High Representative Mogherini also undertook regional tours in July 2017. Outside of statements calling for dialogue and diplomatic efforts, European officials voiced their specific concerns that the crisis could further complicate “an already multifaceted European policy towards the region”19 and that the Gulf crisis was inhibiting regional development and growth.20 German Minister Gabriel went so far as to stress that “there is a danger that this dispute could lead to war” citing what he called 15 European External Action Service, “EU Backs Mediation Efforts to Resolve Gulf Crisis,” July 4, 2017, https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/ 29255/eu-backs-mediation-efforts-resolve-gulf-crisis_en. 16 “Germany Urges Steps to Defuse Crisis in Gulf Region,” Reuters, June 7, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/gulf-qatar-germany-minister/germany-urgessteps-to-defuse-crisis-in-gulf-region-idUSB4N1FT00A. 17 “Germany Calls for Diplomacy to Resolve Qatar Standoff, Turns Down Mediator Role,” Deutsche Welle, June 9, 2017, https://www.dw.com/en/germany-calls-for-diplom acy-to-resolve-qatar-standoff-turns-down-mediator-role/a-39181306. 18 “Macron Urges Lifting of Qatar Embargo,” France 24, September 15, 2017, https://

www.france24.com/en/20170915-macron-urges-lifting-qatar-embargo. 19 Przemyslaw Osiewicz, “Europe Seeks Peaceful End to Gulf Crisis,” Middle East Institute, June 28, 2017, https://www.mei.edu/publications/europe-seeks-peaceful-end-gulfcrisis. 20 Tweet, German Federal Foreign Office, November 17, 2017, https://twitter.com/ GermanyDiplo/status/931580267239825408.

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a “dramatic” harshness in relations among the GCC neighbours.21 Much of the alarm centred on two key developments—the inauguration of the presidency of Donald Trump in the United States in early 2017 and the rise of Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia as the new Crown Prince in June 2017. From a European perspective, neither the American President nor the Saudi Crown Prince were contributing to bringing about an effective de-escalation process. With Europe also keen to protect the Iranian nuclear agreement, signed in 2015 and now being threatened by both the Trump administration and rising opposition from within GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the sense in Europe was that the situation in the region was dangerously escalating. The European position shifted somewhat when on June 23, 2017, Qatar was presented with a list of sweeping demands to meet for the blockade to be lifted. Instead of sticking to their policy of strict neutrality, European statement tilted more in the direction of Qatar as the accusations levelled against Doha were not shared by European officials. Germany’s Foreign Minister Gabriel was one of the more outspoken persons praising Qatar’s “restraint” and saying that “there are boundaries that you should not cross, that the sovereignty of each of country and the respect of this national sovereignty has to be there.”22 He also called the 13 demands made of Qatar by the four blockading countries “very provocative.”23 The UK provided a less direct but similar assessment when then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson stated that: “Gulf unity can only be restored when all countries involved are willing to discuss terms

21 “Gabriel warnt vor neuem golfkrieg,” Der Spiegel, June 10, 2017, https://www.spi egel.de/politik/ausland/katar-krise-gabriel-warnt-vor-neuem-golf-krieg-a-1151565.html. 22 “Katars

Gegner erhalten Antwort auf ihre Forderungen (Qatar’s Opponents Receive an Answer to Their Demands),” German Press Agency, July 5, 2017, https://www.bbv-net.de/Welt/In-und-Ausland/Katars-Gegner-erhalten-Antwortauf-ihre-Forderungen-102990.html. 23 “Germany Brands Arab States’ Qatar Demands ‘Very Provocative’,” Euractiv with Reuters, June 27, 2017, https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/ger many-brands-arab-states-qatar-demands-very-provocative/. Curiously, Germany’s Development Aid Minister Gerd Müller, less than a year earlier accused Qatar of financing the Islamic State terror group. “German Minister Accuses Qatar of Financing ISIS,” Reuters, August 20, 2014, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-germany-qatar/ger man-minister-accuses-qatar-of-funding-islamic-state-fighters-idUSKBN0GK1I720140820. The statement was later retracted by the government.

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that are measured and realistic.”24 None of the European statements issued endorsed the demands made on Qatar while Brussels by-and-large agreed with the assessment the action taken against Qatar was illegal.25 Looking back at the overall role of Europe in the initial phases of the Qatar crisis, it can be argued that the GCC rift again underlined the limits of European policy in the region. Calls by European officials for a calming of the situation or for the importance of the GCC states to work together mostly fell on deaf ears with little impact on influencing the positions of each of the protagonists. Rather than putting forward their own initiative to bring the crisis to a resolution, the EU merely voiced support for the Kuwaiti mediation effort. As such, the potential role of the EU mediating in the crisis never gained any traction. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel-Jubair also made it clear during a visit to Germany in June 2017 that as far as Saudi Arabia was concerned they were not interested in any mediation efforts by European states stating that the issue would be resolved within the GCC.26 The UAE Minister of State Anwar Gargash referred to the need of a European role but only as part of “some sort of monitoring system of Qatar’s obligations.”27 In this sense, the announcement of France of appointing their former ambassador to Saudi Arabia as a special envoy to support mediation efforts went nowhere.28 On the

24 “Foreign Secretary Statement on Gulf Tensions,” June 23, 2017, https://www. gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-statement-on-gulf-tensions. See also, Raf Sanchez, “Saudi Arabia Gives Qatar 10 Days to Meet Its Demands: Close Al-Jazeera and Cut Ties with Iran,” Daily Telegraph, June 23, 2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/2017/06/23/saudi-arabia-presents-demands-qatar-close-al-jazeera-cut-ties/. 25 See Nayef Bin Nahar, “Qatar,” in European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Strengthening European Autonomy Across MENA, https://www.ecfr.eu/specials/map ping_eu_leverage_mena/qatar. 26 Answer to a question posed on Europe’s potential mediator role by the author to the Saudi Foreign Minister during the Minister’s participation at an even hosted by the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Berlin, Germany, June 7, 2017. A summary of the event can be found here: https://www.kas.de/en/web/rpg/veranstaltungsberichte/det ail/-/content/-wir-wollen-taten-sehen-. 27 “Emirates Wants US, European Monitors for any Qatar Deal,” Associated Press, June 20, 2017, https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/emirates-wants-us-european-mon itors-for-any-qatar-deal/. 28 Hajer M’tiri, “France Appoints Envoy to Mediate in Gulf Crisis,” Andalou Agency, September 5, 2017, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/france-appoints-envoyto-mediate-in-gulf-crisis/901988.

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whole, Europe quickly found itself on the outside looking in rather than being integrally involved in conflict mediation and resolution. Europe also failed to bring about a common position with the United States on the issue of the crisis thus highlighting the increased discord between the EU and the United States when it came to Middle Eastern developments. Without an effective transatlantic dialogue that would seek to put forward a more concerted policy on how the crisis should be resolved, Europe was left once again without any effective tools that it could bring to the table. It became increasingly apparent that European policy towards the Gulf region was largely out of sync with both the United States and the situation on the ground thus exacerbating the contrasts referred to earlier.

Implications of the June 2017 GCC Rift for EU-GCC Relations For the GCC states, the EU was not the core actor that needed to be courted when it came towards its position in the crisis. Instead, it was more important to concentrate on the United States given the central role played by Washington in the broader Gulf security equation. The crisis thus exposed the continued weakness of the EU in terms of the power politics dimension of external actors in the Gulf given the direct influence the United States still holds in GCC capitals. With little sense that a more active EU mediation effort was in fact wanted or needed to resolve the GCC crisis, European policy soon reverted back to many of its standard approaches when it comes to the GCC states. Despite the continued occasional statement calling for the resolution to the crisis, Europe doubled-down on its intention to protect its various business interest while hedging its position as an actor that could talk to all sides. The initial concern that Europe could be forced to choose sides did not materialize as the GCC states never followed through on suggestions that economic interests and business contracts subject to a favourable position in the GCC crisis. With the GCC as an institution in a state of disarray, the EU found itself confronting a certain dilemma given the multilateral framework through which the EU conducts its relations with the GCC states. Since June 2017, however, no annual joint EU-GCC Ministerial Council meeting has been held. Similarly, the Joint Cooperation Committee

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and the Senior Officials Meeting were not convened and multilateral engagement with the GCC came largely to a halt. In response, the EU put forward the concept of bilateral Cooperation Agreements (CA) that would from its perspective provide an additional framework through which issues of common interest could continue to be discussed. Since the outbreak of the crisis within the GCC, the EU has signed such bilateral cooperation agreements with four GCC states. The arrangement with Kuwait was signed in July 2016, with the UAE in January 2018, with Qatar in March 2018 during the visit of Qatari Emir Shaikh Tamim to Brussels, and with Oman in September 2018.29 Agreements with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are said to close to completion. The move towards primarily bilateral forms of engagement even at the EU institutional level can be said to reflect a level of flexibility by the EU in terms of not simply accepting the crisis as a fait accompli but rather seeing it also as an opportunity to advance on issues at the individual GCC level including on matters considered sensitive from the GCC side. Given its determination to seek as much international support for its position as possible, the bilateral relationship between Qatar and the EU has probably progressed the most. Doha has agreed to enter into a human rights dialogue with the EU with the first meeting held at the end of 2018 in Doha. The EU and Qatar also agreed in early 2019 on the terms for an open skies agreement that would provide Doha with access to all EU member states.30 The agreement was the first to be signed with any GCC member state. In 2016, the European Commission had been given the mandate to conclude agreement with a number of countries including Qatar, the UAE and Oman from the GCC. With the agreement, the EU stated they wanted to send a signal for fair and open markets. Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said: “Qatar was the first partner with whom we launched negotiations following our adoption of the Aviation 29 “The EU and Qatar Hold Their First Senior Officials Meeting,” European Interest, July 4, 2019, https://www.europeaninterest.eu/article/eu-qatar-hold-first-senior-officialsmeeting/. 30 “Qatar, EU to Sign Open Skies Agreement After Agreeing Terms,” Reuters, February 5, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-eu-airlines/qatar-eu-tosign-open-skies-agreement-after-agreeing-terms-idUSKCN1PU0HW#:~:text=The%20agre ement%20means%20%E2%80%9Call%20air,Airways%20said%20in%20a%20statement. See also, Saim Saeed, “How Brussels Helped Qatar Beat Its Aerial Blockade,” Politico, January 17, 2019, https://www.politico.eu/article/how-brussels-helped-qatar-beat-its-aer ial-blockade/.

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Strategy for Europe – now it is also the first one to cross the finish line! More than that – the agreement sets out ambitious standards for fair competition, transparency or social issues … This is a major upgrade compared to the existing framework, and our joint contribution to making aviation more sustainable.”31 Relations with the other signatories to the CAs have also progressed and there is now a place a regular series of exchanges on numerous policy areas. The opening of the new EU delegation office in Kuwait in July 2019 can also be seen as a result of the crisis. For one, in her remarks opening the new EU delegation office, EU High Representative Mogherini highlighted the role of Kuwait as “mediator and peacebuilder” thus emphasizing the importance the EU links to seeing the crisis resolved.32 Second, the new EU office also became responsible for the relations to Qatar thus moving responsibility for this file from the EU delegation office in Riyadh from where travel restrictions had made the maintenance of regular contact more difficult. The argument can thus be put forward that the EU has proceeded to take a pragmatic approach to the situation at hand in order not to allow ties to the GCC states as a whole to be frozen. At the same time, the necessity of such a bilateral approach by the EU is also a reflection of the disillusionment about the broader state of EU-GCC affairs. Outside of the EU level, the crisis has done little to eliminate the Gulf’s competitive business approach when it comes to commercial deals between individual GCC and EU member states. In fact, it can be argued that the crisis has opened up further opportunities for European companies to try to gain an advantage over one another by concluding deals while GCC countries looked towards solidifying their ties to the one or the other country. This can again be seen in the conclusion of deals between Qatar and European countries specifically in the field of defence. 31 European Commission, Mobility and Transport, “EU and Qatar Reach Aviation Agreement,” March 4, 2019, https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/news/201903-04-eu-and-qatar-reach-aviation-agreement_en. Curiously, the same time that talks concluded with Qatar, a similar negotiation effort between the UAE and the EU was called off. 32 European External Action Service (EEAS), “Remarks by High Representative/VicePresident Federica Mogherini at the Opening Ceremony of the EU Delegation to Kuwait,” July 14, 2019, https://eeas.europa.eu/diplomatic-network/gulf-cooperationcouncil-gcc/65424/remarks-high-representativevice-president-federica-mogherini-ope ning-ceremony-eu-delegation_en.

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In December 2017, BAE Systems of the UK and Qatar entered into a contract valued at around $8bn for the country to buy 24 Typhoon combat aircraft.33 The same month during a visit of French President Macron to Doha, Qatar agreed to buy 12 more Rafale fighter planes from French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation as well.34 Qatar further signed a deal worth 5bn Euros ($5.9bn) with Italy for seven navy vessels in August 2017.35 The competitive bilateralism that is part and parcel of Europe’s ties to the GCC states has undermined the EU’s efforts at formulating a common policy with regard to the region. The GCC as an institution has also been further delegated to the EU’s periphery as policies have become re-nationalized. Similarly, for the GCC, Europe remains only a second priority as the region copes with a quickly changing international environment and a Gulf security situation that is adjusting to new realities. The lack of the ability by Europe to have a direct impact on the regional balance of power will continue to ensure that Europe remains a marginal player in regional matters.36 At the same time, it should be acknowledged that the GCC as an organization remains intact and that not all aspects of the multilateral approach have been abandoned. The 10th GCC-EU Economic Dialogue was in fact held in Brussels in October 2019. The GCC Secretariat has also remained active in maintaining its ties to EU institution and the GCC Delegation Office in Brussels remains open. Still, relations have become administratively more complex while the GCC market is no longer as integrated as it was prior to the crisis. Overall, there continue to be more constraints in place than incentives for improved cooperation. The decision taken at the Al-Ula summit of the GCC in January 2021 to bring the crisis over Qatar to a close was immediately greeted positively by the

33 “BAE Systems Announces £5bn Deal to Supply Typhoon Jets to Qatar,” The Guardian, December 10, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/10/ bae-systems-deal-typhoon-jet-qatar-air-force-uk. 34 “Macron Backs Kuwaiti Efforts to End Blockade of Qatar,” Al-Jazeera Interna-

tional, December 7, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/macron-backskuwaiti-efforts-blockade-qatar-171207123517756.html. 35 “Qatar Seals 5-Billion-Euro Navy Vessels Deal with Italy,” Reuters, August 2, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar-italy/qatar-seals-5-billion-euronavy-vessels-deal-with-italy-idUSKBN1AI1VS. 36 Nayef bin Nahar, op.cit.

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EU. It remains to be seen however to how quickly the resolution communique is translated to concrete steps on the ground and how this in turn can then lead to a revitalization of multilateral EU-GCC ties.

Outlook and Conclusion As the world enters a new era of turbulence with a fraying international order, questions will continue about Europe’s capacity and willingness to reorient itself when it comes to the Middle East and the Gulf region. The announcement by the new European Commission that took office in December 2019 to act more “geopolitical” and the reference of the new EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs Josep Borrell that Europe must learn the “language of power” and deal with the world “as it is, not as they wish it to be” indicate an awareness of the gap that continues to exist between Europe’s aspirations and realities.37 How and whether this gap can be closed will continue to be subject to questions in the coming years in particular due to the shifting priorities imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Gulf region, there exists no confidence for the time being that Europe is ready to undertake the necessary investment in the Gulf’s longterm security. While there is clear awareness that Europe is potentially the only actor able to work with all political players in the region in the search for potential solutions, Europe’s effectiveness is undermined by a lack of political will and hesitancy in the approach it takes. Within this context, the model character of the EU in terms of regional integration has begun to fade. Until recently, the European integration experience was viewed largely positively by most of the GCC. But as Marc Otte has argued: “Europe’s failure to change the status quo eventually turned out to be a disappointment and a threat against the European model itself.”38 The inability to produce tangible results in bilateral ties has resulted in the GCC, to some degree, turning away from the EU and looking 37 Beatriz Rios, “Von der Leyen Vows a Green, Digital, Geopolitical EU in Davos,” Euractiv, January 22, 2020, https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/von-derleyen-vows-a-green-digital-geopolitical-eu-in-davos/; Josep Borrell, “Embracing Europe’s Power,” Project Syndicate, February 8, 2020, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commen tary/embracing-europe-s-power-by-josep-borrell-2020-02?barrier=accesspaylog. 38 Marc Otte, “The Quest for Regional Order in the Middle East,” Egmont Security Brief No. 94, February 2018, p. 3, https://www.egmontinstitute.be/the-quest-for-a-reg ional-order-in-the-middle-east/.

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at other models of regional integration such ASEAN and MERCOSUR. While the GCC has moved on to capture the momentum of change and globalization, Europe has trodden mostly in the same place. The result is that whereas in the past the GCC have looked towards Europe for a variety of reasons—from trade, technology and education to even foreign policy issues—the level of determination to build and maintain wide-ranging strategic ties with Europe has declined. To be sure, the Gulf region remains a focus of European policy. The EU also still represents the most advanced experiment in multilateral cooperation and integration. Yet, the Gulf region is also subject to new challenges with a likely shift in the overall balance of power in the region shifting without a clear idea of how it will shift. Europe continues to struggle with the transition of GCC governments being active rather than passive actors. As was stated in a recent report: “The EU will have to equip itself to deal with a more diverse geopolitical scenario, more assertive governments and an increasingly aware and audacious population.”39 In such an equation, the danger exists that Europe will find itself further distanced from this part of the world and that as issues become more difficult to deal with, it will switch to strategies of containment rather than engagement. Given the volatile environment in the entire Middle East, alongside the relatively dim prospects for conflict resolution in the region, Europe’s ties are likely to experience greater periods of tension rather than moments of constructive engagement. Instead of an effort to come to similar trajectories, the likelihood is one of increased divergences in outlook and policy priorities. Such an assessment does not bode well for the overall outlook of EU-GCC institutional ties.

39 Richard Youngs, “Living with the Middle East’s Old-New Security Paradigm,” FRIDE Policy Brief No. 152, March 2013, p. 5, https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/162792/ ENGL%20PB_152_Living_with_the_ME_old_new_security_paradigm.pdf.

Gulf Security Architecture and the Potential Role of Europe Adel Abdel Ghafar and Andrew Leber

Introduction and Context The attacks on oil tankers in the straits of Hormuz in 2019 and the assassination of General Qassem Sulemani in early 2020 raised tensions in the Gulf in the final year of the US Trump administration. This followed from the administration’s undermining of the JCPOA along with the US’s “maximum pressure” strategy towards Iran. Attempts to form alternative security arrangements in the Gulf and the wider region, including the so-called Arab NATO proposed by the US, have supported more open coordination between anti-Iran governments in Israel and the Arab Gulf monarchies, but have yet to be institutionalized. Regional and international actors have called for a new security architecture in the Gulf to decrease current tensions and foster longer-term security arrangements

A. Abdel Ghafar (B) Brookings Foreign Policy and Brookings Doha Center, Doha, Qatar e-mail: [email protected] A. Leber Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Winhall, VT, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_10

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that take into consideration the security needs of various actors. Given that the United States under successive administrations has struggled to remake a security architecture built around its military forces’ considerable presence, other powers will need to assist in defusing current conflicts and establishing institutional forums to address future disputes. While Russia and China are frequently floated as alternative providers of security for the Gulf, both have focused more on commercial gains and short-term ventures rather than stabilizing regional dynamics. In 2019, Russia proposed its own vision for a security arrangement in the Gulf area, seeking to increase its presence and influence in the Middle East. Presenting its proposal as a regionwide counterterrorism coalition, the proposal, which is supported by China, seeks to end the permanent deployment of troops of extra-regional states in the territories of states of the Gulf, a clear reference to the US presence in the region.1 While Russia and China currently do not possess the ability to underpin regional security arrangements, in the long run they can act as a spoilers and challenge US and European interests in parts of the region. Taken together, European countries form a seldom-considered alternative in terms of security provision in the Gulf. Despite ongoing discussions of when China would move to secure shipping lands in the straits of Hormuz, it was a coalition of European countries—without the participation of a key military power, the United Kingdom—who established themselves as an alternative to a US-led protective coalition. This chapter seeks to explore the possibility of European actors helping to create a new regional security architecture in the Gulf, and the limitations of such a potential arrangement. The chapter first explores the key players in Gulf security and their role in the region’s two, overlapping security conflicts: the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the standoff between Qatar and its surrounding countries. Second, it explores Europe’s economic and security ties with the Arab Gulf monarchies, on the one hand, and Iran on the other. Finally, the chapter examines three potential levels of future European involvement in Gulf security architectures: subsidizing local security to safeguard economic ties, investing

1 Russian Ministry of Defence, “Russia’s Security Concept for the Gulf Area,” July 23, 2019, https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/international_safety/conflicts/-/asset_pub lisher/xIEMTQ3OvzcA/content/id/3733575?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_xIEMTQ3Ov zcA&_101_INSTANCE_xIEMTQ3OvzcA_languageId=en_GB.

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diplomatic capital in a renewed nuclear deal with Iran and conflict resolution at the periphery of the Gulf’s main conflicts, or pushing even further to establish a new institutional forum for dispute resolution in the region.

Gulf Security---Key Players and Their Views on Regional Security The security dynamics of the Gulf are largely driven by the manoeuvring of the region’s two most powerful actors, Iran and Saudi Arabia. While for decades the United States has deployed sufficient forces to help Saudi Arabia and other regional partners deter Iranian disruption of oil transport through the Strait of Hormuz, perceptions of faltering US resolve towards involvement in Middle East politics have created new opportunities for new actors—such as Russia and China—to make a pitch for an expanded role in providing regional security. At the same time, the Trump administration’s over-commitment towards Saudi Arabia played a role in allowing a regional “cold war” to erupt into an open dispute, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar. While considerable US diplomatic investment has helped to normalize once-tacit economic and security coordination between Israel and several the Gulf monarchies, these new partnerships do little to address present divisions in the region.

The New Middle East Cold War The main driver of conflict across the Gulf (and in much of the region) is the present standoff between Iran and Saudi Arabia—what Gregory Gause termed the “New Middle East Cold War”, with the two countries competing for influence in weak states and unsteady regimes throughout the Middle East and North Africa.2 The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 non-proliferation agreement signed by the United States, Iran, and the P5 + 1 member nations of the UN Security Council (in addition to Germany), laid the groundwork for an accommodation between Saudi Arabia and Iran by taking the “nuclear file” off the table—or so then-President Obama believed, arguing that the Saudis

2 F. G. Gause III, “Beyond Sectarianism: The New Middle East Cold War,” Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper 11 (2014): 1–27.

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needed “to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood and institute some sort of cold peace”.3 Yet the election of President Donald Trump in the United States allowed Saudi leaders to fully dismiss this notion, even as the Trump administration’s policies proved scarcely more effective than the Obama administration’s at rolling back Iranian influence in the region. Efforts by Iran to leverage relations with proxy groups throughout the region, or by Saudi Arabia and the United States to counter these moves, have generally further inflamed conflicts rather than scoring decisive victories. Iran The most populous country along the Gulf, Iran has played an integral role in Gulf security dynamics for all of the twenty-first century. For much of the past decade, Gulf security dynamics have revolved around US efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation in Iran through combinations of sanctions and diplomatic engagement, Iranian efforts to break out of crippling sanctions through combinations of concessions and threats to US security partners in the region (chiefly Saudi Arabia), and those security partners efforts’ to ensure that the US addresses Iran’s regional meddling first and foremost.4 Iranian efforts are backed up by the fact that the country maintains the region’s largest armed forces in terms of men under arms, with over 700,000 on active duty between the country’s normal military, the parallel institutions of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the volunteer Basij paramilitary force.5 The country also retains a considerable capacity for asymmetric and deniable warfare, including via Iran’s varying degrees of influence over non-state

3 J. Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic 317, no. 3 (2016): 70–90. 4 For discussion of how the United States might “thread this needle” under the biden

administration, see Daniel Benaim and Jake Sullivan, “America’s Opportunity in the Middle East,” Foreign Affairs, May 22, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ middle-east/2020-05-22/americas-opportunity-middle-east. 5 Todd South, Kyle Rempfer, Shawn Snow, Howard Altman, and David B. Larter, “What War with Iran Could Look Like,” Military Times, June 4, 2019, https://www.mil itarytimes.com/news/2019/06/04/what-war-with-iran-could-look-like/.

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actors in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen as well as over the Iraqi and Syrian governments.6 It is an open question whether Iran’s activities in the region are better understood as an aggressive and opportunistic defence, taking advantage of weak states and fractious societies to constrain potentially threatening rivals such as Saudi Arabia, or are part of a broader, ideologically motivated plan of imposing its own terms on the region.7 Commentators and leaders on the Arab side of the Gulf are typically partial to the latter view, while from either perspective Iran takes the United States as a paramount obstacle to its foreign-policy aims.8 Understanding the intentions of Iran’s leadership is further complicated by meaningful foreign-policy divisions within Iran’s political elite as well as the hybrid nature of Iran’s political system, in which an unelected Supreme Leader can overrule the policies of the country’s elected presidents.9 The election of the more “dove-ish” Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran helped spur cooperation with the United States regarding a nuclear agreement, with the Obama administration calculating that some Iranian leadership factions would be willing to trade economic gains of sanctions relief for credible commitments to restrict nuclear activities. Yet critics within the United States and the Gulf cited Iran’s ongoing political and military involvement in the region—not covered by the JCPOA agreement—as the main line of attack against the JCPOA, arguing that the outward appearance of reconciliation was a façade to mask Iranian aggression.10

6 US Defence Intelligence Agency, “Iran Military Power: Ensuring Regime Survival and Securing Regional Dominance,” August 2019, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Docume nts/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/Iran_Military_Power_LR.pdf. 7 Kenneth Katzmann, “Iran’s Foreign and Defense Policies (R44017),” Congressional Research Services, January 30, 2020, pp. 1–2. 8 Baria Alamuddin, “Iran Finalizes Its Regional Corridor of Control,” Arab News, October 20, 2019, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1571666. 9 “Iran’s Politics and Foreign Policy,” Workshop Summary, Chatham House, August 2016. 10 Michael Doran, “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy,” Mosaic Magazine, February 2, 2015, https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/politics-current-affairs/2015/02/obamassecret-iran-strategy/; Yousef Al Otaiba, “One Year After the Iran Nuclear Deal,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-year-after-the-iran-nuc lear-deal-1459721502.

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Saudi Arabia Opposite Iran along the Gulf, Saudi Arabia views itself as one of the primary contestants for regional leadership within the MENA region, after the outset of the twenty-first century sidelined or eliminated most of Saudi Arabia’s traditional competition for this role.11 The US invasion of Iraq removed Saddam Hussein and any subsequent Iraqi government as a direct threat to Saudi security, while the uprisings of the Arab Spring led to the death of Muammar Qaddafi and the disintegration of the Libyan state, embroiled Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in a protracted quagmire of a civil war, and curtailed the foreign-policy ambitions of Egyptian leadership under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Yet fractures in state authority and ruling regimes’ political coalitions also created new opportunities for Iran to expand its relationships across the region, generating Saudi perceptions of being encircled by Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, to say nothing of the threat posed by Iran itself. Accordingly, present Saudi leadership has sought to address the threat of military coercion from Iran while also targeting perceived ideological threats in the form of political Islam (presented by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood) and on a lower level a strategic rivalry with Turkey.12 Despite considerable Saudi military spending, it is doubtful that Kingdom’s forces can capably defend the country without US support.13 This in turn leaves Saudi Arabia largely beholden to US administrations’ policy aims in the Gulf, even if Saudi leaders can occasionally secure concessions on smaller matters in exchange for support on priority policies. This dependency also makes Saudi leaders acutely sensitive to any sense that the United States might abandon its security role in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia’s unilateral efforts to break through perceived Iranian encirclement have generally been unsuccessful at deterring or eliminating

11 Raymond Hinnebusch, “Failed Regional Hegemons: The Case of the Middle East’s Regional Powers,” Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy & International Relations 14 (2013): 75–86. 12 May Darwich, “The Ontological (In) security of Similarity Wahhabism Versus Islamism in Saudi Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy Analysis 12, no. 3 (2016): 469–488. 13 Helen Cooper, “Attacks Expose Flaws in Saudi Arabia’s Expensive Military,” The New York Times, September 19, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/us/politics/ saudi-military-iran.html.

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forms of Iranian influence. For example, Saudi officials—chiefly nowCrown Prince Prince Mohammad bin Salman—led a military intervention against Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2015 in part to ward off Iranian influence in the neighbouring country. The result, however, was a humanitarian disaster for Yemen, a public-relations disaster for the Kingdom within the United States, and increased opportunities for Iranian involvement.14 While the UAE was able to make more progress in the country’s South, in terms of military advances and the provision of public order, the country has recently sought to cut its losses given the reputational costs of maintaining its engagement and the anticipated casualties involved in advancing further into the country.15 In President Trump, Saudi leaders likely believed that they had a reliable security partner who would confront Iran on their behalf, as seen in the President’s harsh rhetoric about Iranian actions and pursuit of a “maximum pressure” campaign to force changes in Iranian international behaviour through economic pressure.16 However, this in turn appears to have encouraged overconfidence in Mohammad bin Salman and key advisers. This first led them to open up a second front in the “cold war” by severing diplomatic ties with neighbouring Qatar in 2017 over the latter’s support for political Islam in the MENA region. With that effort bogged down, Saudi leaders turned back to an “intolerable” Iranian threat; in 2018, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman likened Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to Hitler, arguing that international action was needed to contain and confront Iran.17 14 Peter Salisbury, “Yemen: Stemming the Rise of a Chaos State,” Chatham House, 2016, https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/ 2016-05-25-yemen-stemming-rise-of-chaos-state-salisbury.pdf. 15 Alexander Griffing, “Why Saudi Arabia and ‘Little Sparta’ Still Can’t Defeat Iran in Yemen,” Haaretz, July 22, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/saudiarabia-vs-iran-why-the-arab-coalition-can-t-win-the-war-in-yemen-1.6273832; Alexandra Stark, “Mohammed bin Salman’s Collapsing Coalition in Yemen Means Trouble for Trump,” Foreign Policy, August 23, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/23/moh ammed-bin-salmans-coalition-in-yemen-is-collapsing-that-means-trouble-for-trump-uaesaudi-arabia-aden/. 16 Ben Hubbard and Thomas Erdbrin, “In Saudi Arabia, Trump Reaches Out to Sunni Nations, at Iran’s Expense,” The New York Times, May 21, 2017, https://www.nytimes. com/2017/05/21/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-iran-donald-trump.html. 17 Arab News, “Saudi Arabia’s Al-Jubeir Warns of Intolerable Iranian Threat,” December 6, 2019, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1595031/middle-east; Jeffrey Goldberg, “Saudi Crown Prince: Iran’s Supreme Leader ‘Makes Hitler Look Good’,”

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However, even a relatively pro-Saudi/UAE commentator warned that Saudi Arabia confronting Iran directly would be a disaster.18 Accordingly, after the Trump administration appeared unwilling to use force in defence of the Kingdom, Saudi leaders appeared more open to engaging in dialogue with Iranian counterparts about reducing tensions in the region.19 Furthermore, some Saudi commentators have sought to place more bounded demands on the United States vis-à-vis Iran with the departure of the Trump administration, emphasizing key components of a revised agreement rather than rejecting the idea of a renewed nuclear deal out of hand.20 This likely reflects the outspoken views of key advisers to President Joe Biden—such as Antony Blinken—of the importance of re-establishing the JCPOA.

The Second Front In 2017, a self-styled “anti-terrorism quartet” (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt) moved to sever ties with Qatar, transforming a more tacit struggle for regional influence through investments in high-priced spectacles, media outlets and foreign aid into an open confrontation just short of a shooting war. For years, Qatar’s leadership under Emir Hamad bin Khalifah had sought to counter an overbearing Saudi presence along its borders by building ties with out-of-power Islamist movements and political parties across the Arab world while offering critical coverage of Arab politics and societies through its Al Jazeera satellite channels. While an initial diplomatic dispute in 2014 was handled quietly in backroom negotiations, the open accusations lodged by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the lead-up to June 5, 2017 opened an enduring rift in GCC relations. Where historically more existential threats to the Gulf monarchies’ security have tended to side line intra-GCC disputes, in this case the calculation by Saudi and Emirati leaders that the US administration would

The Atlantic, April 2, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/ 04/mohammed-bin-salman-iran-israel/557036/. 18 Bilal Saab, “For Saudi Arabia, What Now?” DefenseOne, September 23, 2019, https://www.defenceone.com/ideas/2019/09/saudi-arabia-what-now/160070/. 19 Faucon, Said and Strobel, “Saudi Arabia Seeks.” 20 Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, “Biden, the Gulf, and Iran,” AlArabiya, November 10,

2020, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/in-translation/2020/11/10/Biden-the-Gulf-andIran.

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confront Iran on their behalf resulted in two protracted standoffs that feed off each other.21 The standoff led Qatar to rely on trade ties with Iran as part of its strategy for offsetting the effects of the de facto blockade imposed with the quartet, which has in turn fuelled Saudi and Emirati accusations that Qatar has and will continue to collude with Iran against the interests of the GCC.22 Qatar As perhaps the wealthiest country in the world (on a per-capita basis), Qatar’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifah Al Thani and his successor, Emir Tamim bin Hamad, leveraged receipts from the country’s liquid naturalgas (LNG) exports to build up a set of relations with states, political parties and publics throughout the MENA region that allow it to balance against the influence of neighbouring Saudi Arabia. In the first decade of the 2000s, Qatar accomplished this by constructing three overlapping pillars of support. The first entailed closer security cooperation with the United States, such as by facilitating the transfer of a US overseas airbase from Saudi Arabia to desert lands in the South of Qatar, that secured the country a supportive constituency within the US defence establishment.23 The second involved building up the Al Jazeera satellite news channel as a source of critical and reliable Arabic-language coverage in a region dominated by staid, heavily red-lined state news broadcasts. Despite the relative independence of the channel, Al Jazeera’s coverage threatened the information control of Arab governments—including neighbouring Gulf monarchies.24 Finally, Qatar built up political ties with a wide range of governments and non-state actors throughout the MENA

21 F. Gregory Gause III, “Understanding the Gulf States,” Democracy 36 (2015), https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/36/understanding-the-gulf-states/; Mohammed Soliman, “To Counter Iran, Trump Must Rebuild a United Gulf,” Fikra Forum, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 28, 2018, https://www.washingtoninsti tute.org/fikraforum/view/to-counter-iran-trump-must-rebuild-a-united-gulf. 22 https://www.ft.com/content/ae7e041f-ff4b-4df7-8b2b-06488e17a91c 23 David B. Roberts, “Understanding Qatar’s Foreign Policy Objectives,” Mediterranean Politics 17, no. 2 (2012): 233–239. 24 Karim Pourhamzavi and Philip Pherguson, “Al Jazeera and Qatari Foreign Policy: A Critical Approach,” Journal of Media Critiques [JMC] 1, no. 6 (2015).

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region otherwise sidelined by traditional security networks that prioritized authoritarian, US-friendly regimes.25 Groups affiliated with various strands of political Islam tended to dominate Qatar’s growing networks of influence, though there is considerable academic debate over whether this resulted from political opportunism or ideological commitment on the part of Qatar’s leadership.26 The first few years that followed the Arab Spring uprisings represented a high-water mark for Qatari influence, which began to recede after the spectre of Qatar-aligned Islamist parties in power across the region spurred on considerable counter-mobilization by Saudi Arabia as well as the UAE.27 Despite backing ascendant Islamist political parties and efforts at forcible regime change in Libya and Syria, Qatar soon faced these groups being removed from power by a military coup in Egypt, embroiled in domestic conflicts in Libya and sidelined from the struggle against the Assad regime in Syria.28 This reversal was insufficient to assuage Saudi and Emirati concerns about Qatar’s potential to challenge its neighbours’ domestic security, however, setting the stage for a more protracted conflict that threatened the GCC as a regional institution. The United Arab Emirates In contrast to Qatar, the UAE has under leadership of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed (MBZ) sought to eradicate the influence of political Islam wherever possible in the Middle East and North Africa. While

25 Bernd Kaussler, “Tracing Qatar’s Foreign Policy and Its Impact on Regional Security,” Research Paper, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, September 2015. 26 Courtney Freer, “Rentier Islamism in the Absence of Elections: The Political Role of Muslim Brotherhood Affiliates in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 49, no. 3 (2017): 479–500; David B. Roberts, “Qatar and the UAE: Exploring Divergent Responses to the Arab Spring,” The Middle East Journal 71, no. 4 (2017): 544–562. 27 Guido Steinberg, “Leading the Counter-Revolution Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring,” Research Paper 7, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, June 2014, https://www. swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/research_papers/2014_RP07_sbg.pdf. 28 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, “Qatar and the Arab Spring: Policy Drivers and Regional Implications,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 24, 2014, https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/09/24/qatar-and-arab-spring-policydrivers-and-regional-implications-pub-56723.

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Emirati leaders have called for a coercive approach to Iran in private and have tolerated official spokespersons (such as Ambassador to the UAE Yousef al-Otaiba) talking up confrontation in public, in recent years they have prioritized this ideological struggle as part and parcel to competing with Qatar in a game of geopolitical one-upmanship.29 This comes as the UAE has worked diligently to build up the size and capacity of its military while maintaining active diplomatic engagement with a host of major powers.30 Over the course of the 2010s, Emirati-Qatari geopolitical competition in the MENA region has transformed from tacit manoeuvring to gain influence through financial support to proxy groups and political parties, as well as high-profile spending on prestige projects, to open diplomatic confrontation stopping just short of armed conflict. An obsession with preventing the rise of political Islam within the UAE’s borders has extended into concerted efforts to push back against this ideological current throughout the Arab world. Emirati officials make no distinction between violent terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and Islamist organizations seeking to advance their aims through peaceful protest or political engagement, portraying all forms of politicized Islam as part of the same “transnational networks and organizations that breed and support hatred and violence in the name of religion”.31 Following an unexpected leadership transition to Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emirati leaders joined with Saudi leadership to put pressure on Qatar over its ties to Islamist groups by withdrawing their ambassadors from Doha in 2014. Even though Kuwaiti mediation (as

29 Liz Sly, “Princely Feuds in the Persian Gulf Thwart Trump’s Efforts to Resolve the Qatar Dispute,” The Washington Post, May 14, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost. com/world/princely-feuds-in-the-persian-gulf-thwart-trumps-efforts-to-resolve-the-qatardispute/2018/05/13/7853cc88-39cf-11e8-af3c-2123715f78df_story.html. 30 David B. Roberts, “Bucking the Trend: The UAE and the Development of Military Capabilities in the Arab World,” Security Studies 29, no. 2 (2020): 301–334; Jean-Loup Samaan, “The Rise of the Emirati Defense Industry,” Sada, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 14, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/79121. 31 Quote from Yousef al- Otaiba, “The Moderate Middle East Must Act,” Wall

Street Journal, September 9, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/yousef-al-otaiba-themoderate-middle-east-must-act-1410304537; Robert Worth, “Mohammed bin Zayed’s Dark Vision of the Middle East’s Future,” The New York Times Magazine, January 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/magazine/united-arab-emirates-moh ammed-bin-zayed.html.

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well as US pressure) was able to patch things up over the course of the year, Princes MBZ and MBS returned to the issue in 2017 by openly severing diplomatic ties with Qatar—this time with the tacit approval of the Trump administration.32 The conflict was in a stalemate for nearly the duration of the Trump administration, with a coalition within the US government (assisted by considerable Qatari lobbying) working to oppose further action against Qatar even as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other members of the self-styled “anti-terror quartet” (Bahrain and Egypt) refused to make any concessions towards the country. In the dying days of President Trump’s time in office, and possibly in recognition that the incoming Biden administration would have a different approach towards GCC countries, there was a breakthrough in resolving the Gulf Crisis. On the January 5, 2021, the Al Ula Declaration was signed between the GCC countries, restoring diplomatic relations, and re-opening land, sea and air borders. Despite this breakthrough, it remains to be seen if GCC actors have indeed resolved their differences, or simply set them aside for now, with tensions and disagreements potentially resurfacing at a later stage.

Other Actors Other Members of the GCC While Bahrain’s foreign policy is effectively tied to Saudi Arabia due to the former’s considerable dependence on the latter for the security of the Bahraini regime and the island’s borders, officials of the other two members of the GCC have worked to shore up a sense of communal security among the Gulf monarchies—against the divergent preferences of its more forthright members, and in order to preserve their own countries’ autonomy vis-à-vis Iran and a Saudi-Emirati axis alike. Kuwait’s late Emir Sabah Al Sabah, active in Gulf politics before the GCC was first formed (in 1981), put considerable effort into mediating periodic disputes between the organization’s members—no doubt cognizant of Kuwait’s vulnerable position between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. While these efforts met with some success in 2014, they were less successful in resolving the 2017 standoff between Qatar and the quartet, due to a combination of

32 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. Qatar and the Gulf Crisis (London: Hurst and Company, 2020) 59–60.

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Saudi/Emirati intransigence and Emir Sabah’s own poor health.33 Likewise, Omani leaders sought to maintain outward neutrality towards the standoff, even as Sultan Qaboos’ poor health in the years prior to his death hindered more active engagement in mediation efforts.34 The United States The United States has long been the primary external actor in Gulf security, recently sending an additional 4,500 troops to the region following tensions stemming from the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The resulting US presence of around 50,000 troops around the Gulf is less than the 200,000 deployed at the height of the Iraq war but considerably above the 1990s levels.35 The 1980 Carter Doctrine has long identified the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz into international markets as a “vital interest” of the United States, to be backed up by force—as was the case with US involvement in the Gulf War of 1990–1991. Accordingly, most countries in the Arabian Peninsula followed Saudi Arabia in pursuing close security ties with the United States over the course of the 1990s, relying on US weapons and security guarantees to deter foreign-policy pressure from Iraq (until 2003) and Iran.36 Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has also maintained a fraught relationship with the country; despite winding down the US occupation in 2011, the Obama administration returned in force to confront the jihadi group ISIS in partnership with the Iraqi government. The United States under the Trump administration viewed Iran as a paramount threat and antagonist in the MENA region, opting to steadily ratchet up economic sanctions on the country in a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at triggering regime-ending social unrest within

33 Ulrichsen, Gulf Crisis, 2020, 252–254. 34 Jonathan Schanzer and Varsha Koduvayar, “Kuwait and Oman Are Stuck in Arab No

Man’s Land,” Foreign Policy, June 14, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/14/ kuwait-and-oman-are-stuck-in-the-arab-no-mans-land/. 35 “How Many U.S. Troops Are in the Middle East?” U.S. News, January 9, 2020, https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-01-09/after-recent-dep loyments-how-many-us-troops-are-in-the-middle-east. 36 Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, “Internal and External Security in the Arab Gulf States,” Middle East Policy 16, no. 2 (2009): 39–58.

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Iran—while, in theory, sapping the Islamic Republic’s ability to fund malicious activity and cultivate allies abroad. US-Iranian diplomatic relations accordingly reached a nadir even by the standards of ties under the Bush administration, with the United States withdrawing from the JCPOA and undermining European countries’ participation in the deal.37 Critics have pointed out, however, that the campaign instead inspired new provocations from Iran in an effort to break free of sanctions, even as the Trump administration made little progress on any of a core set of 12 “demands” for sanctions to be lifted.38 Despite the Trump administration’s assurances to Gulf security partners that it would prove a more steadfast ally than the Obama administration, however, its unwillingness to clash with Iran directly continued to drive uncertainty regarding US intentions. The Trump administration limited its response to Iranian provocations to stationing additional troops in the region, including when drone-launched missiles almost certainly from Iran or Iranian-backed militias severely damaged Saudi Arabia’s main oil refineries in Abqaiq and Khurais.39 This prompted regional allies to further doubt US security commitments, while also prompting some in the US foreign policy establishment to claim that the administration had effectively abandoned the long-standing Carter Doctrine.40 Trump seemingly reversed position yet again in January of 2020, however, with a targeted strike on Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. The act drew both applause that Trump had established a clear “red line” for Iran and criticisms 37 Robin Wright, “Trump’s Close-Call Diplomacy with Iran’s President,” The New Yorker, September 30, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-tru mps-close-call-diplomacy-with-irans-president-hassan-rouhani. 38 Nicholas Miller, “Maximum Pressure Is Failing: Fact-Checking Pompeo on Iran,” War on the Rocks, August 15, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/maximumpressure-is-failing-fact-checking-pompeo-on-iran/. 39 Ben Hubbard, Palko Karasz, and Stanley Reed, “Two Major Saudi Oil Installations Hit by Drone Strike, and US Blames Iran,” The New York Times, September 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refine ries-drone-attack.html. 40 David Kirkpatrick, and Ben Hubbard, “Attack on Saudi Oil Facilities Tests US Guar-

antee to Defend Gulf,” The New York Times, September 19, 2019, https://www.nyt imes.com/2019/09/19/world/middleeast/saudi-iran-attack-oil.html; Hal Brands, Steven A. Cook, and Kenneth M. Pollack, “RIP The Carter Doctrine, 1980–2019,” Foreign Policy, December 13, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/15/carter-doctrine-ripdonald-trump-mideast-oil-big-think/.

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regarding Trump’s unpredictable foreign-policy decision-making process from regional partners and US commentators.41 Russia While Russia has sought to expand its security presence in the Middle East and North Africa in recent years, this has largely been to shore up the Assad regime in Syria.42 President Vladimir Putin’s major aims are to defend existing Russian security infrastructure (entirely in Syria), sell armaments (chiefly S-400 air defence missiles) and score quick-andeasy political points against European and American counterparts hesitant to commit to using force to achieve diplomatic goals. Where possible, Moscow has sought to show the region’s rulers that it can be a reliable security partner, without the same domestic constraints on the use of force and weapons sales that US leaders face.43 Relations with Iran, while not approaching the same degree of Russian involvement as in Syria, provide Moscow with some leverage in the event of a new round of negotiations over a resurrected nuclear deal. Yet even though a recent visit by Putin to Riyadh earned some glowing reviews from the Saudi commentariat, Russia’s involvement in the region is still constrained by the financial costs of engagement and a lack of vital economic interests in the region.44 Most recently, Russia’s leadership was willing to jeopardize improving relations

41 The Wall Street Journal, “Tehran’s Retaliation, Trump’s Reply,” January 8, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/tehrans-retaliation-trumps-reply-11578528961; Lara Seligman and Robbie Gramer, “Nervous US Allies Brace for Iran Fallout,” Foreign Policy, January 14, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/14/nervous-allies-trumpiran-fallout-middle-east-tensions-suleimani-killing-conflict/; Aya Batrawy, “Risky Gulf Arab Strategy Tested by Killing of Iran General,” Associated Press, January 9, 2020, https:// apnews.com/806c4358f7be8b9511319b0cc1e7ff44. 42 Eugune Ruemer, “Russia in the Middle East: Jack of All Trades, Master of None,”

Research Paper, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 31, 2019. 43 Eugene Ruemer and Andrew Weiss, “A Brief Guide to Russia’s Return to the Middle East,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 24, 2019, https://carneg ieendowment.org/2019/10/24/brief-guide-to-russia-s-return-to-middle-east-pub-80134. 44 Becca Wasser, “The Limits of Russian Strategy in the Middle East,” RAND Corporation, 2019, pp. 5–7, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE340.html.

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with Saudi Arabia and other oil producers in order to shore up its standing in global energy markets vis-à-vis the US shale-oil industry.45 China China’s primary interests in the MENA region are expanding its commercial reach and locking in energy supplies, all while avoiding greater security entanglement. While China maintains a small base of around 400–1000 troops in Djibouti, these forces focus on providing logistical support for anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and humanitarian programmes in Africa rather than playing any meaningful role in MENA security.46 Vague Chinese gestures towards an expanded role in the region are often taken as evidence of greater security engagement despite evidence to the contrary.47 Arms sales form one area where China is willing to play a more engaged security role, albeit typically only as a “reserve seller” willing to provide certain countries with arms that traditional suppliers such as the United States refuse to sell.48 Saudi Arabia, for example, has purchased ballistic missile technology and drone production capacity from China where US laws prevent such sales. China’s strategy is instead predicated on ensuring access to lucrative markets and productive sites of investment while largely free-riding off US security provisions. Despite a clear threat to energy supplies from the Gulf in the summer of 2019, for example, talk of China sending ships to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz quickly died down.49 Still, as

45 Joshua Yaffa, “How the Russian-Saudi Oil War Went Awry—For Putin Most of All,” The New Yorker, April 15, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/how-therussian-saudi-oil-war-went-awry-for-putin-most-of-all. 46 François Soudan, “Ismaïl Omar Guelleh: «Personne d’autre que les Chinois n’offre un partenariat à long terme à Djibouti»,” Jeune Afrique, April 4, 2017, https://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/421096/politique/ismail-omar-guelleh-per sonne-dautre-chinois-noffre-partenariat-a-long-terme-a-djibouti/. 47 Ibrahim Fraihat and Andrew Leber, “China and the Middle East After the Arab Spring: From Status-quo Observing to Proactive Engagement,” Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 13, no. 1 (2019): 1–17. 48 Naser M. Al-Tamimi, China-Saudi Arabia Relations, 1990–2012: Marriage of Convenience or Strategic Alliance? (Routledge, 2013), 166–167. 49 Bonnie Girard, “China and Gulf Security: Conspicuous by Its Absence,” The Diplomat, May 7, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/china-and-gulf-security-con spicuous-by-its-absence/.

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Iran’s top trading partner and oil customer for some time, China might be able to utilize shared economic ties to either pressure or persuade Iran into coming to the table for renewed negotiations over nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.50 Israel While Israel plays only a limited role in the region’s security architecture, a series of diplomatic agreements that normalized relations between the country and several of the Gulf monarchies have helped to publicize and routinize once-tacit security cooperation. To be sure, Israel has long intervened in the Gulf to hinder Iran’s military capabilities through covert operations and the threat of using overt force against any Iranian nuclear weapons programme.51 In a move aimed primarily at his domestic political supporters, President Trump and administration officials lobbied hard for the normalization of ties between several Arab states and Israel, succeeding with respect to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. These agreements stand to deepen existing intelligence cooperation and may result in Israel and the Arab Gulf monarchies, presenting a more united front against a renewed nuclear deal that makes any meaningful concessions towards Iran.52

Europe: Limited Engagement, Considerable Leverage Even as Russian and Chinese leaders have garnered Western headlines through their overtures to the Gulf monarchies and bilateral relations with Iran, EU member nations have been criticized by some observers for frequently being bystanders to conflicts and political developments in the region. “Even the Chinese government has more to say in Syria”,

50 Alex Vatanka, “China’s Great Game in Iran,” Foreign Policy, September 5, 2019,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/05/chinas-great-game-in-iran/. 51 David Sanger and Ronan Bergman, “How Israel, in Dark of Night, Torched Its Way to Iran’s Nuclear Secrets,” The New York Times, July 16, 2018, https://www.nytimes. com/2018/07/15/us/politics/iran-israel-mossad-nuclear.html. 52 Ian Black, “Just Below the Surface: Israel, the Arab Gulf States, and the Limits of Cooperation,” LSE Middle East Centre Report, 2019, 35–37.

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noted Przemysław Osiewicz, an expert in EU-MENA relations.53 Likewise, a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations described EU influence in the region as “weaker than ever”, with policies largely focused on short-term, transactional concerns.54 This lack of engagement is not for a lack of overarching interests in the region. First, European countries seek to ensure that the Iran nuclear deal remains in force, however weakened. Key European leaders, particularly in France and Germany (together with the United Kingdom, the “E3”), believe that Iran is best contained through diplomacy and economic connections rather than the aggressive approach the Trump administration has pursued since 2017.55 Under the aegis of the European Union, the E3 have pursued diplomatic means of constraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions since 2003, fearing that further steps towards proliferation might trigger a recurrence of the US-led invasion of Iraq.56 Over the course of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the JCPOA agreement, European leaders sought to shore it up where possible. EU member nations navigated around US sanctions to encourage Iran to remain committed to the deal, even as they reluctantly moved to criticize Iran over withdrawing from some aspects of the deal in protest.57 Not coincidentally, re-imposing sanctions would impact numerous European

53 “The EU and the Middle East: In Search of a Strategy,” Middle East Institute (Blog), January 24, 2019, https://www.mei.edu/publications/eu-and-middle-east-search-strategy. 54 “Mapping European Leverage in the MENA Region,” European Council on Foreign

Relations, https://www.ecfr.eu/specials/mapping_eu_leverage_mena. Accessed February 19, 2020. 55 Ellie Geranmayeh, “The Coming Clash: Why Iran Will Divide Europe from the United States,” European Council on Foreign Relations, October 25, 2017, https:// www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/why_iran_will_divide_europe_from_the_united_sta tes_7230. 56 Olivier Meier, “European Efforts to Solve the Conflict Over Iran’s Nuclear Programme: How Has the European Union Performed?” Non-Proliferation Papers 27, EU Non-Proliferation Consortium, February 2013. 57 Laurence Norman, “Europeans Step Up Pressure on Iran Over Nuclear Violations,” The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-poi sed-to-increase-pressure-on-iran-over-nuclear-deal-violations-11575625191.

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firms, such as Airbus, who have anticipated considerable new business with Iran.58 Secondly, economic ties with countries on all sides of the Gulf—in terms of trade, labour migration, energy supplies and financial flows— together constitute a powerful interest for European countries seeking to ensure economic growth at home. The GCC countries imported more goods from the EU-27 as a bloc than any other country in 2019 (including China), with European exports largely sustained despite the downturn in oil prices since 2014.59 This has in turn spurred calls for an EU-GCC free trade agreement (FTA) from outlets within the region as well as European commentators—potentially an additional source of leverage, much as China has raised the possibility of a China-GCC FTA as part of its own strategic overtures to the region.60 Europe has also long exported services to the Gulf in the forms of high-priced consultants and white-collar expats holding down jobs in financial institutions, schools, construction contractors and even government agencies throughout the Arab monarchies.61 European trade flows are even more consequential for the bloc’s relationship with Iran, with EU exports surging during the initial years that the JCPOA was in effect. While China remains Iran’s dominant trading partner (providing Iran with over 24% of its imports and absorbing over 40% of the country’s exports in 2019), the European bloc is still Iran’s

58 Krishnadev Calamur, “Europe’s Fight to Save the Iran Deal Isn’t Just About Diplomacy,” The Atlantic, October 5, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/arc hive/2017/10/iran-nuclear-trump-europe/542094. 59 “European Union, Trade in Goods with GCC 6,” Directorate-General for Trade, European Commission, April 22, 2020, https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/isdb_results/factsh eets/region/details_gcc-6_en.pdf. 60 Omar Al-Ubaydli, “Why the GCC and EU Should Restart Negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement,” Al Arabiya, July 3, 2019, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/ news/middle-east/2019/07/03/Why-the-GCC-and-EU-should-restart-negotiations-ona-free-trade-agreement; Tanja Porˇcnik and Miguel Cervantes, “Giving the EU-GCC Trade Relations a Chance,” CATO Institute, March 11, 2020, https://www.cato.org/ publications/commentary/giving-eu-gcc-trade-relations-chance. 61 Jean-Yves Le Drian, “French Expertise Can Help Transform Saudi Arabian Economy,” Speech Given at Franco-Saudi Business Forum, April 10, 2018, https://uk. ambafrance.org/French-expertise-can-help-transform-Saudi-Arabian-economy.

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4th largest trading partner.62 European officials have a considerable incentive to connect Iranian oil and natural gas supplies to international energy markets to lessen European reliance on Russian energy production.63 Finally, European authorities seek to ensure that extremist groups do not gain another foothold, as has happened in Syria, Libya and Egypt’s Sinai. This emphasis on controlling threats coming from abroad is mirrored in EU efforts to shield their publics from terrorist attacks emanating from the region. European countries have long cooperated with security services opposite the Mediterranean in order to disrupt terrorist networks and prevent planned attacks; even when this runs the risk of reinforcing political repression under authoritarian regimes (as in Morocco), European security demands typically override human rights concerns.64 Vincent Durac argues that European counterterrorism policy implicitly identifies European security interests in the broader Middle East region with a return to pre-2011 “stability” backed up by autocratic regimes governing via capable states.65 Even if counterterrorism cooperation with the GCC countries is more limited, the role of the Gulf monarchies in far-off conflicts such as Libya has a direct impact on European security as well as other European policy priorities such as stemming the flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean. Yet while counterterrorism cooperation is frequently cited as justification for close European ties with countries such as Saudi Arabia, commentators have increasingly weighed the benefits of such cooperation against the reputational costs of Gulf human rights abuses.66 The US

62 “European Union, Trade in Goods with Iran,” Directorate-General for Trade, European Commission, May 8, 2020, https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/isdb_results/factsheets/ country/details_iran_en.pdf. 63 Shirvani and Siniša Vukovi´c, “After the Iran Nuclear Deal: Europe’s Pain and Gain,” The Washington Quarterly 38, no. 3, (2015): 79–92. 64 Anthony Dworkin and Fatim-Zohra El M Maliki.“The Southern Front Line: EU Counter-Terrorism Cooperation with Tunisia and Morocco,” European Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/the_southern_front_line_eu_coun ter_terrorism_cooperation. 65 Vincent Durac, “Counterterrorism and Democracy: EU Policy in the Middle East and North Africa After the Uprisings,” Mediterranean Politics 23, no. 1 (2018): 103–121. 66 Armida van Rij and Benedict Wilkinson, “Security Cooperation with Saudi Arabia: Is It Worth It for the UK?” Research Paper, King’s College London, September 2018, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/uk-saudi-arabia-report.pdf.

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government and its Gulf security partners have meanwhile put considerable pressure on European countries to undercut sources of support to militant groups linked to Iran, such as Hezbollah.67 Despite an extensive period of British colonial rule in the Gulf, the present-day direct European security presence in the region is quite limited. The UK has retained a small but durable presence in the region, including advisory and training roles for the Kuwaiti, Qatari, Jordanian and Saudi militaries as well as a new, permanent naval base in Bahrain with 5 resident ships.68 Around 400 UK military personnel are serving in Iraq, while the UK maintains particularly close security ties with Oman.69 France maintains roughly 1,000 military personnel in Iraq and Syria for operations against ISIS, in addition to operating two permanent military bases in the UAE since 2009.70 Leverage in the form of arms sales and trade it far greater. Despite the considerable focus on US arms sales to the region, European countries (including the UK) supply more arms to each of the six GCC countries as a bloc than do Russia or China (Fig. 1). While it is difficult to coordinate restrictions on arms sales across European countries—particularly on joint programmes such as the Eurofighter Typhoon programme—EU member countries such as Germany have periodically blocked shipments to Saudi Arabia over concerns that the use of such weapons violated international humanitarian law in Yemen.71 While these suspensions have little bearing 67 Richard Grenell, “Why EU Should Ban Hezbollah,” Politico, January 22, 2020, https://www.politico.eu/article/why-eu-should-ban-hezbollah/. 68 Heritage Foundation, “Assessing the Global Operating Environment: Middle East,” https://www.heritage.org/military-strength/assessing-the-global-operating-enviro nment/middle-east; Royal Navy, “HMS Montrose’s Arrival in Bahrain Heralds New Era in Gulf,” April 11, 2019, https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/ 2019/april/11/190411-montrose-arrival-bahrain-new-era-in-gulf. 69 Forces Network, “UK Reviewing ‘Force Protection’ in Middle East After US Air Strike Kills Top Iran General,” January 3, 2020, https://www.forces.net/news/uk-rev iewing-force-protection-middle-east-after-us-air-strike-kills-top-iran-general. 70 DW , “France Opens Military Base in UAE,” May 26, 2009, https://www.dw. com/en/france-opens-military-base-in-uae/a-4280431; Asharq al-Awsat English, “Macron Says France Committed to ISIS Fight, Slams Iran’s ‘Aggressive Intentions’,” January 6, 2020, https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2068966/macron-says-france-com mitted-isis-fight-slams-iran%E2%80%99s-aggressive-intentions. 71 Sophia Besch and Beth Oppenheim, “Up in Arms: Warring Over Europe’s Arms Export Regime,” Center for European Reform, September 2019, https://www.cer.eu/ sites/default/files/pbrief_arms_export_9.9.19.pdf.

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Arms Sales to GCC Countries - 2010-2019 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% KSA

Bahrain United States

UAE Europe

Oman Russia

Qatar

Kuwait

China

Fig. 1 Percentage of arms imports for each country coming from different suppliers. European numbers include the United Kingdom (Source Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Transfer Database, 2020)

on the central strategic conflicts in the Gulf, they place pressure on GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia to restrict their involvement in peripheral conflicts such as Yemen. Divisions within the European Union, as well as between European countries and the United States, have hindered effective European diplomacy towards the Gulf on a number of fronts. On a range of topics, the Trump administration downplayed the importance of traditional US alliances with European countries and frequently clashed with European leaders on topics ranging from trade to climate change. Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration actively undermined European countries’ ability to trade with Iran (and sustain the JCPOA) through US secondary sanctions that hindering financial transactions including Iran. As a result, total bilateral trade in 2019 was only one-fourth of what it was in 2017, undercutting European countries’ ability to incentivize Iranian officials to remain committed to non-proliferation.72 Intra-European divisions— chiefly the UK leaving the European Union—have also hindered efforts

72 Tarja Cronberg, “No EU, No Iran Deal: The EU’s Choice Between Multilateralism and the Transatlantic Link,” The Nonproliferation Review 24 (2017): 3–4.

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to present a unified European position on human rights violations by Gulf governments.73 At times, however, these divisions have spurred more of an active European security role, including in the Gulf. A perception of US brinksmanship in vis-à-vis Iran in the Gulf—coupled with a seeming inability to manage resulting Iranian provocations—led to the creation of Europeanled maritime surveillance mission in the Strait of Hormuz (EMASoH), with participation from Germany, France, Italy and a number of other European nations.74 The UK launched a separate escorting mission— perhaps as the country was by then on its way out of the European Union.75

What Role for Europe in Fostering Security Cooperation in the Gulf? The past five years have seen frequent discussions of alternative security arrangements for the Gulf that would seek to minimize the potential for catastrophic conflict in one of the world’s most heavily armed, oil-rich and environmentally fragile regions. While Iran has formally renounced its pursuit of nuclear weapons since 2003, its ongoing civilian nuclear research programme has long raised concerns about the country’s potential for future proliferation—precisely the concerns that the JCPOA sought to address. Statements by Saudi officials have likewise suggested that the Kingdom would rapidly pursue nuclear weapons if they believed that Iran would acquire them shortly. Any open conflict threatens about 20% of the global oil supply, though perhaps less of a concern for a global economy battered by declining demand from the

73 Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, “War in Yemen: European Divisions on Arms-Export Controls,” Military Balance Blog, International Institute of Strategic Studies, March 20, 2018, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2018/03/war-yemen-europeanarms-export. 74 “Eight Countries Back European-Led Naval Mission in Strait of Hormuz,” Radio Free Europe, January 20, 2020, https://www.rferl.org/a/eight-countries-back-europeanled-naval-mission-in-strait-of-hormuz/30387967.html. 75 “Royal Navy Vessels Sent to Protect Shipping in Strait of Hormuz,” The Guardian, January 4, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/04/royal-navy-ves sels-sent-to-protect-shipping-in-strait-of-hormuz.

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fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.76 Additionally, the strategic divisions running through the Gulf fan the flames of conflict hundreds of miles away, from the UAE offering financial backing to factions in Libya’s civil war, to Iran supporting Iraqi government agencies and popular militias in repressing dissent from Iraqi citizens, to the Saudi government playing a major role in transforming Yemen’s internal conflict into the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. Most new security proposals have attempted to leverage shared Muslim or Arab identities as a source of coordination, yet this has provided ineffective as a means of coordinating around regional security. The Arab League is far more fractious than even the GCC, and there is little sense that an “Arab solution” is forthcoming to resolve conflicts across the region.77 An 41-nation Islamic military counterterrorism coalition, founded in December 2015 under the auspices of Saudi Arabia, may provide opportunities for capacity-building among less-capable members (such as Senegal and Nigeria) at the expense of wealthier partners, yet it is unclear how this would contribute to security in the Gulf.78 Even existing bodies for security coordination have been rendered inoperable by internal divisions—decades of emphasis on a common identity among the Arab Gulf monarchies were insufficient to prevent the outbreak of internal conflict. The GCC’s Peninsula Shield Force is the only regional security organization that has deployed joint forces to “keep the peace”—several times to guard Kuwait’s borders from Iraqi attacks through 2003, and in 2011 to quell protests against the Bahraini government. While still functional in theory, the Gulf rift has raised questions

76 Karl Russell, Denise Lu, and Anjali Singhvi, “Why This Narrow Strait Next to Iran Is so Critical to the World’s Oil Supply,” The New York Times, July 11, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/07/business/economy/iranstrait-of-hormuz-tankers.html. 77 Andrew Leber, “An Army for the Arab League?” Al Araby, March 10, 2015, https:// www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/2015/3/10/an-army-for-the-arab-league. 78 Kamal Alam and Wajahat S. Khan, “Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Anti-Terrorism Effort: A Coalition of the Willing or an Anti-Iran Front?” RUSI , December 6, 2017, https://rusi.org/commentary/saudi-arabia%E2%80%99s-islamic-anti-terrorismeffort-coalition-willing-or-anti-iran-front; Brian Michael Jenkins, “A Saudi-Led Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism: Welcome Muscle in the Fight Against Terrorism, Desert Mirage, or Bad Idea?” RAND Corporation, 2016, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspecti ves/PE189.html.

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about the force—and GCC security coordination more broadly—as a tool of common defence. New proposals by external actors have fared little better, inspiring little confidence that attempts to coordinate common security reflect an enduring commitment by outside powers. The Middle East Strategic Alliance, or MESA, was announced during President Trump’s 2017 visit to Riyadh as a means of fostering greater economic security cooperation among a range of US security partners (the GCC along with Jordan and Egypt).79 Any thought of a newly unified security architecture was dealt a considerable blow by the 2017 Gulf crisis effectively splitting the GCC into three different blocs of countries.80 Egypt ceased its participation in 2019, reportedly because it “doubted the sincerity of the initiative”.81 Arguably, the most impactful steps towards greater security cooperation under the Trump administration had little to do with such overarching, top-down efforts: bilateral normalizations between Israel and several Gulf monarchies that have lowered barriers to security cooperation vis-à-vis Iran. Russia and China have proposed regional institutions rooted more in security coordination and conflict resolution, respectively, yet have utilized these more as an overture to sell arms or boost economic ties rather than as serious proposals with a chance of being brought to fruition. Russia called for a much broader Persian Gulf Security Cooperation Organization (PGSCO) that would include a range of external actors—such Russia, China, the United States, the EU and India—as “observers or associated members” alongside the countries bordering the 79 Saudi Press Agency, Riyadh Declaration Text, May 21, 2017, https://www.spa.gov. sa/viewstory.php?lang=ar&newsid=1632546; Yasmine Farouk, “The Middle East Strategic Alliance Has a Long Way to Go,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 8, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/02/08/middle-east-strategicalliance-has-long-way-to-go-pub-78317. 80 “In the long term, with the MESA that we envision, it would be hard to have two or three countries in this alliance in this kind of confrontation,” noted US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arabian Gulf Affairs Tim Lenderking in 2018. Al-Oraibi, Mina and Joyce Karam, “Exclusive: Mesa to Include Nine Countries While Prioritising Iran threat,” The National, September 26, 2018, https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/exclusivemesa-to-include-nine-countries-while-prioritising-iran-threat-1.774415. 81 Stephen Kalin and Jonathan Landay, “Exclusive: Egypt Withdraws from U.S.-led Anti-Iran Security Initiative—Sources,” Reuters, April 11, 2019, https://www.reuters. com/article/us-usa-mesa-egypt-exclusive/exclusive-egypt-withdraws-from-u-s-led-antiiran-security-initiative-sources-idUSKCN1RM2WU.

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Gulf (monarchies and republics alike).82 This security organization would be centred around ideals of peaceful dispute settlement and cooperation against transnational threats such as international terrorism and drug trafficking, yet Russia has thus far invested little diplomatic capital into making this proposal more than words on paper. China’s Xi Jinping has called for a “regional multilateral dialogue platform” to resolve regional conflicts, but this seems to mainly be a vehicle for emphasizing China’s continued support for the Iran nuclear deal.83 Against the relatively bleak track record of mutual security in the Gulf, European countries can help to bring about a new security arrangement in the Gulf in a variety of ways—being willing to match commercial interests with the provision of security somewhat more than China, and as a critical “swing” constituency in re-establishing ties with Iran that can offer more reliable trade ties than a volatile US political system. European countries will likely be more helpful in resolving or mitigating the primary Iran-Saudi axis of conflict and competition rather than the intra-Gulf dispute; US officials with the Biden administration enjoy greater leverage with respect to their Gulf security partners and have repeatedly signalled their interest in resolving the conflict. Still, coordinated European diplomatic pressure might help contain the regional fallout from intra-Gulf competition. Here, we propose three different levels of European security involvement, ranging from more a limited engagement that leverages bilateral arrangements to secure immediate European interests in the Gulf to a maximalist approach that works with key outside powers to fundamentally re-organize institutions of regional cooperation and coercion. Loose Coordination, Piecemeal Engagement The simplest role for European countries to play in the Gulf’s security architecture is to leverage existing bilateral arrangements to maximize

82 Russian Ministry of Defence, “Russia’s Security Concept for the Gulf Area,” July 23, 2019, https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/international_safety/conflicts/-/asset_pub lisher/xIEMTQ3OvzcA/content/id/3733575?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_xIEMTQ3Ov zcA&_101_INSTANCE_xIEMTQ3OvzcA_languageId=en_GB. 83 Poornima Balasubramanian, “China’s Approach to Mediating Middle Eastern Conflicts,” The Diplomat, October 16, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/chinasapproach-to-mediating-middle-eastern-conflicts/.

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financial returns for European economies while offering a modicum of protection to Gulf shipping lanes, a modicum of incentives for Iran to remain committed to non-proliferation and a modicum of restraint on Gulf governments’ regional adventurism through opportunistic sanctions on human rights violations and misuse of military equipment. Beyond simply doing nothing, this is the most achievable role for European countries to play should the bloc struggle with internal divisions and have to contend with an uncooperative administration. This model would build on existing European efforts to protect shipping lanes within the Gulf, encouraging other members of the EU and the European Economic Area to take part as both a commitment to the region’s security and as a useful training exercise for European militaries increasingly concerned by the ambitions of Putin’s Russia and less certain of their ties with the United States. The EMASoH mission has been received positively in the Gulf, with one retired Kuwaiti official contrasting stepped-up European efforts favourably with “increasing burden-sharing” from the United States.84 Rather than simply joining existing US security operations, an independent European presence would help assuage some Iranian concerns that a “protective presence” was merely a stalking force for more aggressive intentions towards Iran—particularly after the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Non-proliferation may be harder for European diplomats to achieve. For limited engagement to achieve more than simple deterrence, European diplomats will have to continue playing a weak hand well when it comes to nuclear diplomacy with Iran.85 The Trump administration’s threats to ensnare European companies doing business with Iran in secondary sanctions severely undercut European economic ties with Iran, and there is little guarantee of a future Republican administration being more lenient. Regarding the Gulf rift, European countries are unlikely to be able to do more than offer political and perhaps economic support 84 Agens Helou, “Allies Shoulder for Influence in the Gulf Region as Naval Security Remains Top Priority,” Defense News, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/ 16/allies-shoulder-for-influence-in-the-gulf-region-as-naval-security-remains-top-priority/. 85 Ferial Ara Saeed has described as “Playing a Weak Hand to Advantage.” “On Iran, Europe Plays a Weak Hand to Advantage,” War on the Rocks, February 20, 2020, https:// warontherocks.com/2020/02/on-iran-europe-plays-a-weak-hand-to-advantage/.

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to Oman and Kuwait’s efforts to mediate behind the scenes. While the divisions within the European Union are liable to undercut any effort to directly engage in resolving Gulf-related conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa—as seen in the continued hand-wringing over the conflict in Libya—opportunistic sanctions might have some effect on minimizing human rights violations within particular conflicts. Rebuilding a Nuclear Deal with Iran A more engaged and coordinated European approach would go beyond minor efforts at de-escalation and deterrence to support cross-Gulf efforts at reigning in conflicts and managing diplomatic engagement. The about-faces in regional US policy over the course of the 4-year Obama-Trump-Biden transitions show the value of a more stable European approach, one that can incentivize peace (or at least a more muted set of conflicts) regardless of who sits in the White House. Even if the Biden administration is able to restore the JCPOA to a semblance of working order, it will come under renewed pressure with every successive Republic administration.86 European diplomats might therefor work in concert with Kuwait and Oman to convince Iranian officials to trust diplomatic negotiations after the turmoil of the past four years—this time investing in financial institutions to insulate European commitments from US pressures. The Biden administration will at least buy European powers four years of breathing room to figure out how to overcome a future US “banking blockage” on transactions with Iran. This is the most important material step these countries can take towards insuring non-proliferation in the region. The expansion of the Instex trading system (a “special purpose vehicle” for financial transactions, or SPV), currently limited largely to humanitarian goods, provides an initial means for European companies to do business with Iran in a way that is (in theory) insulated from the

86 Nicholas Miller has talked at length about the challenges facing a deal under the Trump administration, and likely any of its successors. “Trump Is Still Pushing for a New Nuclear Deal with Iran. How Likely Is That?” Monkey Cage Blog, The Washington Post, January 15, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/15/trumpis-still-pushing-new-nuclear-deal-with-iran-how-likely-is-that/.

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reach of US sanctions.87 More importantly, European countries will have to be prepared for diplomatic hardball to ensure that these transactions are in fact isolated from US financial pressure.88 This approach would also employ more coordinated European policies on arms sales and sanctions to place pressure on parties to conflicts that have been exacerbated by the Gulf’s strategic conflicts, most pressingly the conflict in Yemen. This will reinforce the approach of the Biden administration towards resolving conflicts, while setting the stage for independent European diplomacy in the face of a future Republican administration.89 As of now, efforts to apply European pressure via restrictions on arms sales have been stymied by difficulties in developing a common policy. While a determination by one EU member that an arms customer is in violation of international humanitarian law is supposed to bind the activity of all other member countries—the so-called Common Position—in practice this has placed considerable pressure on countries to avoid rocking the boat with sanctions that might disrupt the arms sales of their neighbours.90 Yet finding ways to agree on a common position for conflict that have been so universally condemned as Yemen can in turn provide the basis for approaches to other conflicts that more directly affect European security interests, such as that in Libya. All European parties should realize that they have more to gain by keeping arms from inflaming the situation there than they do by offering arms to “their” side in the hopes that they can win out—as the French have done when it comes to Hafter.91 Finding a 87 Stephanie Zable, “INSTEX: A Blow to U.S. Sanctions?” Lawfare, Lawfare Institute, March 6, 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/instex-blow-us-sanctions; Laurence Norman, “EU Ramps Up Trade System With Iran Despite U.S. Threats,” Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-ramps-up-trade-system-withiran-despite-u-s-threats-11585661594. 88 Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, “Bankless Task: Can Europe Stay Connected to Iran?” European Council on Foreign Relations, October 10, 2018, https://ecfr.eu/article/com mentary_bankless_task_can_europe_stay_connected_to_iran/. 89 See overview of expected Biden administration policy in “Five Key Questions on Biden’s Middle East Policy,” Expert Comment, Chatham House, November 18, 2020, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/11/five-key-questions-bidens-middle-east-policy. 90 Sophia Besch and Beth Oppenheim, “Up in Arms,” pp. 4–7. 91 Paul Taylor, “France’s Double Game in Libya,” Politico, April 17, 2019, https://

www.politico.eu/article/frances-double-game-in-libya-nato-un-khalifa-haftar/; Jihad Gillon, “France-Libya: Marshal Haftar, the Controversial Friend of the Élysée,” The Africa Report, March 20, 2020, https://www.theafricareport.com/24823/france-libyamarshal-haftar-the-controversial-friend-of-the-elysee/.

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way to wind down conflict in Libya would not address the heart of the intra-Gulf divide, but would at least dampen its effects on conflicts across the region. Towards a Europe-Centred Strategic Alliance Finally, a far more involved approach could see European countries effectively present themselves as an alternative source of security coordination in the Gulf to the United States, or as a peer security player brokering the kind of multi-party Gulf Security Cooperation Organization that the Russian Ministry of Defense discussed in its offhand proposal. To be sure, this level of engagement would be a stretch for European countries contending with challenges to European unity within the continent—the UK opted to join a US-led maritime coalition to protect shipping lanes in the Gulf rather than EMASoH, likely reflecting a post-Brexit UK leadership seeking to tie its country’s future more closely with the United States than the continent. Nevertheless, the mere existence of MEASoH provides a “concrete example” of European security coordination in the Gulf, one that might yet form the cornerstone of more expanded military and diplomatic engagement.92 Even if European countries’ existing economic and political ties connect them more closely to the Arab Gulf monarchies than Iran, they remain (collectively) the main powerful actor with a stake in the region that can still be seen as something of an “honest broker” on both sides of the Gulf. This level of engagement would aim not simply at European provision of a degree of security in the Gulf—shoring up existing architectures— but at attempting to build a security community within the Gulf. Leading European foreign-policy actors such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain can take the lead in securing broader security cooperation than even a renewed JCPOA might provide, building an institutional forum for cooperation around the idea of peaceful and (relatively) impartial dispute

92 Eva Pejsova, “What the European Maritime Initiative in the Strait of Hormuz Tells Us About Brussel’s Security Ambitions,” European Leadership Network, March 27, 2020, https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/what-the-european-mar itime-initiative-in-the-strait-of-hormuz-tells-us-about-brussels-ambition-and-capacity-as-asecurity-actor/.

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resolution—similar to the role of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in governing Southeast Asian relations.93 The greater credibility of European countries vis-à-vis Iran as well as their greater commercial ties to countries on all sides of the Gulf render them more likely than the United States to be successful in this type of “light touch” regional intervention to enforce a dispute resolution mechanism to decrease regional tensions.94

Conclusion This chapter has outlined a potential role for European countries in Gulf security cooperation, bearing in mind the constraints of these countries’ limited capacity for force projection and domestic political pressures. In contrast to the United States’ overwhelming security presence in the region, which provides numerous sources of direct leverage vis-à-vis the Arab Gulf monarchies, European security presence is quite limited. Still, Europe retains significant economic ties with countries on both sides of the Gulf, and is far from irrelevant as a key source of military equipment and expertise. Europe’s long track record with respect to nonproliferation in the region also suggests a more stable policy with respect to Iran, in contrast to a US oscillation between tepid engagement with and fanatical opposition to the Islamic Republic that has undermined efforts at diplomatic engagement and conflict mediation. After 4 years of economic and diplomatic pressure from the Trump administration, the Biden administration looks to afford European countries a degree of breathing room in their approach towards the Gulf and the Middle East more broadly. It is up to European leaders to decide whether they want to take steps towards being foreign policymakers when it comes to Gulf security, or whether they prefer to remain policy-takers beholden to the whims of US officials.

93 Tobias Nischalke, “Does ASEAN Measure Up? Post-Cold War Diplomacy and the Idea of Regional Community,” The Pacific Review 15, no. 1 (2002): 89–117. 94 Nathan Toronto, “Can a 19th Century Maritime Truce Help Ease 21st Century Tensions in the Gulf?” Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington Blog, October 10, 2019, https://agsiw.org/can-a-19th-century-maritime-truce-help-ease-21st-centurytensions-in-the-gulf/.

Conclusion: EU-GCC Relations at a Crossroads Adel Abdel Ghafar and Silvia Colombo

EU-GCC relations are facing several hurdles and their future is at stake. On the one hand, the multilateral framework appears to have stalled and the old expectation to forge a dynamic region-to-region relationship based on a comprehensive list of priorities cannot be sustained any longer. On the other, bilateral contacts and deals—both on the level of the EU institutions and of the individual EU member states—have been on the rise, particularly in the last decade. This situation and the mismatch between these two dimensions show that there is ample potential to be tapped into, provided the right approaches, goals and instruments are devised and used. As the chapters in this book have demonstrated, a long list of factors— both structural and contingent, both on the GCC side and with regard to the EU’s poor common foreign policy record—can be blamed to account

A. Abdel Ghafar (B) Brookings Foreign Policy and Brookings Doha Center, Doha, Qatar e-mail: [email protected] S. Colombo Istituto Affari Internazionali, Roma, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5_11

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for the stagnation and the missed opportunities. However, as this book has also clearly argued the potential is still there and new possibilities to leverage existing opportunities and cooperation mechanisms to unlock it fully (albeit gradually) should not be missed. From education and training to cultural and religious diplomacy, from energy and trade relations to inter-parliamentary cooperation, from the need for the two parties to share responsibilities for the security and development of the broader Gulf region to the potential offered by the GCC countries’ Visions, the list of issues on the table and the possible room for manoeuvre and improvement are potentially wide and deep. In this regard, the risk would be to go back to a too long and difficult to operationalise list of priorities as was the case in the Cooperation Agreement of the late 1980s and in the Joint Action Plan of the early 2010s. As experiences in other parts of the world have demonstrated, there is less appetite today for large-scale, top-down comprehensive cooperation frameworks. This was the standard during the decades of initial formation of a common European foreign policy, namely the 1990s and 2000s. In that context, EU-GCC multilateral cooperation developed in parallel, but separate from, the EU’s multilateral engagement with the Southern Mediterranean in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) launched in 1995. Similar to this neighbouring geopolitical space, represented by the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, where comprehensive North–South relations lost steam and were gradually but steadily replaced by intense bilateral cooperation, also in the case of EUGCC relations bilateralism, often antagonistic and competitive in nature, has become the most widespread form of cooperation. While the EU would continue to pursue a ‘balanced engagement’ in the region in the attempt to avoid major disruptions of regional equilibria and to defuse tensions, individual EU member states have relentlessly hedged between the parties to protect their own interests and businesses. The widening gap between the EU-GCC multilateral framework and bilateral relations between the two parties has been growing for the past ten years as a result of two intertwining contingent factors. On the one hand, the global financial and economic crisis of 2007–2008 has altered the balance of negotiation power between the EU and the GCC in favour of the latter due to the former’s weakening position. On the other, the impact of the Arab uprisings and of the ensuing domestic transformations in several countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

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region, including the GCC countries themselves, on regional geopolitics has heightened the fragmentation and competition within the GCC group. As a result, the traditional dossiers of the multilateral cooperation, first and foremost the plan to establish a region-to-region Free Trade Agreement (FTA), have faced increasing challenges and have been frozen ever since. Alternatively, new room for cooperation at the bilateral level has been found, for example to exploit the potential of the Visions that were launched by the GCC countries in the mid-2010s to foster a more diverse, sustainable and productive development model. Environmental concerns, the decline of the oil prices and revenues, demographic pressures and the unsustainability of traditional security alliances have all facilitated the proliferation of bilateral relations between the EU and the GCC region. Nevertheless, much more could still be done to ensure a smooth and fruitful relationship, particularly in terms of better coordination between the limited, institutional multilateral framework, on the one hand, and bilateral deals and relations, on the other. Coordination means that better fine-tuning between the interests and expectations on both sides at the two levels should be pursued with a view to avoiding competition, inconsistencies and conflicting priorities. This would concretely mean that the preferential relations between the individual EU member states and the GCC countries should be leveraged and exploited as launching-pads to develop a sustainable, joined-up, multilateral EU-GCC effort. One key way to start this process would be to envisage joint EU and member states’ policies and forms of engagement with the GCC, both as a regional organisation and as a set of individual countries. Including stronger EU representation in the context of the European Heads of state or of government’s visits to the region, as well as joint delegations (e.g. French/German), or discussing and negotiating positions and policies that take into due account both member states’ interests and priorities and the EU’s—sometimes lower common denominator—positions would be two concrete practical steps to take in this direction. In other words, time has come to be creative and forward-looking and to think of how to devise and make use of variable-geometry cooperation patterns, adhoc coalitions, flexible lead groups in EU and European diplomacy, such as the already-tested E3 (France, United Kingdom and Germany) in the case of the negotiations on the Iran nuclear file or the E4 (France, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy) dealing with the conflict in Yemen.

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EU-GCC Relations: The Path Forward In addition to rethinking the format of EU-GCC relations, a thorough revision in terms of content, issue areas and priorities should also be undertaken. This should be pursued in order to avoid diluting the cooperation amidst several lines of actions that are not coordinated or outright clashing with each other. The goal of developing a holistic approach in EU-GCC relations should be fostered in a more realistic and less ambitious way compared to the idea and proposition of advancing an all-encompassing agenda as in the past. To that end, both the EU and the GCC need to focus on immediate issues of common concern, such as youth education and training, energy, the environment and security. To start with, security of the Gulf and of the broader MENA region could be one shared priority to work on as a possible confidence-building measure for two reasons. First, given foreign policy differences within the GCC, it would be important to clarify the positions of the different European countries vis-à-vis issues such as the engagement with Iran, the stability of the countries of the MENA and the management of conflicts in coordination with the GCC partners. The emergence of conflicting priorities should not prevent some individual players in the two blocs from taking the lead and implement mutually beneficial confidence-building measures to address shared security concerns such as the escalation of regional conflicts, post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction, humanitarian assistance and maritime security. Second, in-keeping with the declarations and aspirations of the current European Commission to play a more robust geopolitical role regionally and globally, this could be a welcome terrain to test the EU’s seriousness and capability to live up to its own promises. Talks about a home-grown regional security mechanism, implemented with the assistance of external players, should be encouraged to ease geo-political tensions after the Al-Ula Declaration. In 2019, attacks of shipping vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and on Saudi oil installations have put the region on the edge of increased and fully fledged conflict. While there have been efforts at de-escalation, the threat of conflict remains real. Over the past decades, security has not been in the EU’s portfolio as far as the GCC and the Gulf region are concerned. Its free-riding approach— based on the US security umbrella—cannot be sustained any longer given the accumulation of the region’s security challenges. Furthermore, the EU and its member states (some more than others) have maintained

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good relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran and with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Qatar, and thus would be well-positioned to concretely support the creation of an endogenous regional security mechanism—thus giving substance to the EU’s willingness to achieve ‘strategic autonomy’ in its foreign policy. To achieve that, the EU will need to acknowledge the interdependencies of security developments in the region and to devise a comprehensive policy towards the Gulf. A second area of cooperation to be pursued stems from the need to foster mutual understanding and knowledge between Europe and the Gulf, both at the institutional level and—most importantly—at the people-to-people level through religious and cultural diplomatic efforts mainly. This is a fundamental precondition to move EU-GCC relations forward and underpin them with more solid bases. While contacts between multiple stakeholders on the two sides have proliferated, more often than not they have contributed to spreading false information, inaccurate views and stereotypes on the other part as well as to fostering tensions and conflicts. In order to dispel these and to develop sounder relations, two sets of actions should be undertaken. On the one hand, soft power issues, including inter-religious dialogue, cultural exchanges and sport-related cooperation, should be encouraged as platforms to develop common region-to-region initiatives and generate mutual benefits in terms of circulating new ideas, fostering tolerance and easing inter-regional societal relations. On the other hand, there is a need to establish a European Studies Centre in one of the GCC countries, as well as increase support for various Gulf Studies programmes across Europe. Student exchanges both at an undergraduate and post-graduate level should be encouraged as well as deeper engagement between academics, and research and policy institutions should be further developed. Third and connected to this, significant gaps have been identified in cooperation in higher education and training opportunities. The GCC countries are facing significant demographic pressures with a large increase in their youth populations. How that youth population is harnessed over the next decade will determine if this will become a demographic dividend or curse. As they attempt to grow their economies beyond reliance on hydrocarbons, GCC governments will need to move towards a diversified, high-skilled and knowledge-based economy in which the private sector plays a significant role and with higher productivity rates. A key component of achieving this goal will be the education

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and training of GCC youth, in which the EU can play a more prominent role than what happens to date. This can be done by expanding the Erasmus + programme to include more GCC students and to deepen collaboration between higher educational institutions. In addition to cooperation in higher education, European countries can provide valuable know-how in Technical and Vocational Training (TVET), an area that—despite the current difficulties—will become increasingly important as GCC nationals take up more jobs in the private sector that were previously held by expatriates. Finally, traditional issues such as energy cooperation should not be disregarded. However, this should take the new conditions of global energy markets as well as the new constraints and opportunities stemming from climate-change-sensitive policies into account. A key component of the EU’s economic engagement with the GCC countries has traditionally been the exploitation of hydrocarbons, which has come at the expense of cooperation on more sustainable forms of energy and environment-related diplomacy. Due to its arid climate, the Gulf region faces a multitude of environmental challenges including desertification, water scarcity and biodiversity loss. These challenges are being compounded by the global challenge of climate change. Confronted with this global challenge, the EU and its member states can play a role in supporting the GCC countries’ efforts to combat climate change by enhancing technical cooperation between research institutions focused on climate change and by sharing know-how and best-practices on issues of water management, disaster management, desertification and the preservation of biodiversity. This would represent a concrete contribution to the sustainability of the GCC countries’ Visions, particularly at times of the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 emergency. By focusing on these four broad issue areas, namely security and geopolitics, people-to-people connections and soft power, higher education and training, and energy, climate and sustainable development, it will be possible to provide new stimulus to EU-GCC relations on new, firmer bases and by taking in adequate account the context of changing domestic and regional conditions both in the EU and in the GCC.

Index

A Abraham Accords, 58, 65, 74, 152 Al Jazeera, 62, 76, 167, 214, 215 Al Maktoum, Mohammed bin Rashid, 62 Al-Sisi, Abdel Fattah, 99, 212 Al Thani, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, 62, 171, 214, 215 Al Thani, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad, 67, 171, 202, 215, 217 Al Ula, 69, 70 Arab League, 72, 101, 230 Arab uprisings, 5, 21, 26, 29, 86, 99, 240 Aramco, 40, 45, 87, 137, 141, 151

B Barcelona Process, 21 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 88, 96, 97, 121 Biden, Joe, 144, 145, 191, 214, 232, 234, 235, 237

Brexit, 80, 100, 143, 144, 236 C China, 2, 12, 81, 88, 96, 97, 106, 112, 120, 121, 126, 141–143, 145, 146, 192, 208, 209, 222, 223, 225, 227, 231, 232 Climate change, 6, 7, 93, 110, 127, 131, 145, 148, 151, 169, 228, 244 Climate policy, 145 Colleges of Excellence (CoE), 42–45 Conditionality, 22 Cooperation Agreement (CA), 4, 11, 13, 14, 29, 61, 79, 80, 106, 130, 131, 149, 173, 188, 193–195, 202, 203, 240 COVID-19, 2, 7, 16, 28, 29, 31, 34, 37, 54, 55, 68, 77, 81–84, 87, 89, 91, 94–96, 101, 103, 106, 118, 119, 127, 146, 150, 152, 154, 155, 183, 185, 190, 192, 205, 230, 244

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 A. Abdel Ghafar and S. Colombo (eds.), The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Contemporary Gulf Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0279-5

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Cultural and religious diplomacy, 6, 57, 58, 65, 240 Customs union, 4, 13, 16, 127, 131, 141, 149, 150, 194

D Diversification, 2, 7, 12, 36, 41, 81–84, 86, 88–91, 93, 96, 102, 103, 107, 109, 110, 120, 123, 130, 147, 148, 168

E EU delegation, 29, 155, 176, 195, 203 European Commission (EC), 18, 19, 80, 90–92, 106, 108–110, 114, 121, 130–132, 178, 202, 203, 205, 225, 226, 242 European Council, 18, 59, 80, 81, 110, 178, 200, 224, 235 European External Action Service (EEAS), 18, 19, 197 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), 21 European Parliament (EP), 8, 153, 154, 158–162, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172–179, 181–184, 195 European Union Global Strategy (EUGS), 10, 30

F FIFA World Cup, 77, 95 First Gulf War, 3 Foreign direct investments (FDIs), 93, 96, 128, 129, 139–142, 146, 148 Free-Trade Area (FTA), 13, 20–22, 26, 27, 31, 80, 127, 129–132, 134, 136, 141–43, 146–148, 151, 152, 188, 194–196, 225

G G20, 93, 112, 151, 176, 178, 179 Green New Deal, 92

H Higher education, 4, 14, 34, 46, 49, 50, 65, 67, 91, 244 Houthi, 213 Humanitarian aid, 98, 99, 101 Human rights, 7, 19, 21, 22, 30, 72, 73, 76, 79, 127, 132, 158–162, 165, 172–178, 181–185, 191, 195, 202, 226, 229, 233, 234

I International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), 88 Iran, 2, 3, 8, 60, 72, 105, 129, 190, 191, 207–216, 218–221, 223–237, 241–243 Irregular migration, 2, 97 Islamic charities, 100–102

J Joint Action Programme (JAP) for 2010–2013, 4, 14, 188, 194 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 2, 190, 191, 207, 209, 211, 214, 220, 224, 225, 228, 229, 234, 236 Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting, 14, 155, 196 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 110

K King Salman, 72, 175, 177 Knowledge-based economy, 33, 83, 87, 243

INDEX

L Labour market, 6, 33–36, 38, 42, 44, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 87, 88 Libya, 2, 5, 26, 78, 112, 113, 177, 189, 216, 226, 230, 234–236 Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), 63, 107, 108, 113, 121, 137, 215 Lisbon treaty, 19, 109, 110

M Macron, Emmanuel, 68–70, 74, 144, 198, 204, 227 Maritime security, 20, 22, 242 Masdar, 88 Mecca, 71, 72 Mediterranean Initiative for Jobs (Med4Jobs), 90 Merkel, Angela, 59, 144 Mogherini, Federica, 155, 165, 166, 182, 197, 198, 203 Mohammed bin Salman, 69, 70, 86, 87, 175, 176, 199, 213 Mohammed bin Zayed, 62, 216, 217 Muslim Brotherhoods, 17, 37, 73, 74, 212, 216 Muslim World League, 71

N NEOM, 84 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 74, 170 Non-proliferation, 20, 22, 209, 224, 228, 233, 234, 237

O Official development assistance (ODA), 98–101 Oil prices, 7, 28, 62, 63, 81–84, 103, 119, 120, 126, 127, 129–131, 134, 145, 148, 150, 151, 225, 241

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Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 55, 98, 102, 120 Organization of Islamic Cooperation, 72

P Pope Francis, 73 Populism, 7, 127, 143 Protests, 16, 72, 156–158, 163, 164, 167, 195, 217, 224, 230 Public-private partnership, 86, 91

Q Qatar crisis, 7, 127, 149, 200

R Regionalism, 15, 16 Renewable energy, 7, 82, 87, 88, 92, 93, 102, 110, 111, 118, 119, 122, 123, 145, 148 Rentier state, 36, 37, 82, 102 Rouhani, Hassan, 211

S Saudi Vision 2030, 83, 87, 148 Security architecture, 8, 26, 207, 208, 223, 231, 232 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), 88–91, 100, 101 Social contract, 5 Soft power, 18, 57, 58, 63, 69, 72, 75, 96, 243, 244 Soleimani, Qassem, 207, 219, 220, 233 Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), 12, 27, 63, 76, 80, 87, 141 Strait of Hormuz, 23, 229, 233, 236, 242

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Sultan Qaboos, 61, 167–169, 219 Sustainable development, 2, 88, 244 Syria, 2, 5, 26, 78, 177, 189, 212, 216, 221, 223, 226, 227 T Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), 6, 7, 24, 33–42, 44, 46–55, 90, 244 Terrorism, 5, 30, 130, 173, 182, 192, 198, 226, 230, 232 Treaty of Rome, 106 Trump, Donald, 2, 22, 74, 143, 145, 190, 199, 207, 209, 210, 213–215, 217–221, 223, 224, 228, 231, 233, 234, 237 U Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), 21

United States (US), 2, 4, 18, 22, 23, 60, 61, 86, 93, 99, 111, 112, 119–123, 131, 138, 143, 145, 151, 190–192, 196, 199, 201, 207–217, 219–222, 224, 226–229, 231–237, 242

V Value Added Tax (VAT), 16, 20, 87

W Women’s empowerment, 34, 183

Y Yemen, 2, 5, 26, 70, 99–101, 105, 177, 178, 183, 211–213, 227–230, 235, 241