EU-GCC Relations: Dynamics Perspectives, and the issue of Poticial Reform

The European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council have forged closeer ties since 2004. Europe figures prominently in the imports and exports of thre GCC. In this article, a history of the official interactions is given for rthe past 25 years. Strategic points are offered to further strengthen economic and political cooperation between the two major blocs of countries. Relations between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the european Union (EU) - understood as encompassing both the collective/institutional entity and the individual member states have developed slowly and initially mainly on a bilateral basis. The history of the relations between European states and ther Gulf does of course stretch back for nearly two centuries, and is part and parcel of the history of state formation in the region. In recent decades, most GCC states have balanced their reliance on the US security umbrella with bilateral agreements in the field of security with European states. An mutual trade is significant - with over one-third of GCC imports originating in the EU and more thant 20 percent of its exports going to the EU (2004) (see tables 1-3). But at a collective level, the story is much more recent. The GCC iuself is only 25 years old, but on the EC/EU side too, a global approach toward the region and its constituent countries is a recent development. It was not until late 2004 that the EU opened a delegation in Riyadh, with an ambassador accredited to the six GCC states.