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In 2021, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) format celebrated forty years after the rulers of the six Gulf Arab states (Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia) met on May 25, 1981, at the InterContinental Abu Dhabi to attend the first GCC summit.

Over the span of more than four decades, the GCC reaffirmed existing social ties and shaped a stronger “Khaleeji (Gulf) identity,” with inherent obstacles. The organization has had its ups and downs, meeting its lowest point when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain (alongside Egypt and other countries) imposed a blockade on Qatar in 2017, ended with an agreement accepted in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia in early 2021.

Although there were ambitious plans for regional integration, significant challenges remain. Intra-GCC trade still accounts for less than 10% of member states’ global exports, whereas the shares in the EU sit at roughly 50% to 60%, according to the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, other reforms in the labor or mobility section, have progressed slowly. Large infrastructure initiatives, such as interconnecting railways have also suffered great delays.

The GCC bloc is renowned for the member states rich with hydrocarbon reserves, yet there are other specifics in the quest for economic diversification. Bahrain focuses on offering financial services and has a tradition in aluminum production, while Kuwait relies on oil production mainly being an important player in the OPEC, supported by a strong sovereign wealth fund, the Emirates are a logistics hub and a tourism center, Qatar capitalizes on its natural gas reserves, whereas Oman is more inclined towards its tourism sector and fisheries. The most ambitious diversification plan is that of Saudi Arabia under Vision 2030. The Kingdom is the one of, if the not the most important player on the oil market. Second, in the region there are the main maritime transport routes from the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea further towards East Asia and South Africa, which makes it incredibly attractive for the Belt and Road Initiative of China. The European Union (EU) is well behind in terms of economic plans for the region, compared to US or China. Yet, the EU is the largest source of FDI for Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Arabia is the EU’s second-largest trading partner in the Persian Gulf. Also, the region’s political stability translates into the dynamics of Europeans’ lives, as evidenced by a conflict in Yemen (bordering the GCC) resulting in an increase in the number of refugees reaching European borders, or the factions of radical Islam having a direct impact on the activities of terrorist organizations in Europe. The Member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council could cooperate closely with the EU in many fields, i.e., political, economic, and cultural.

The legal framework for the cooperation between the European Community and the GCC countries was established in 1989 after the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement (signed in 1988). The agreement remains in effect, although the Free Trade Agreement negotiations were launched in 1990 have continued to be suspended since 2008. Moreover, since the European External Action Service (EEAS) was established, the European Union has gradually started to develop the network of its diplomatic posts, replacing European Commission Delegations to the third countries with the EU Delegations. There is an EU Delegation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) since 2010. Beyond the KSA, it represents the European Union to the Gulf Cooperation Council Secretariat, Oman, and Bahrain. Thus, this Delegation has assumed important roles for the politics of the Arabian Peninsula. The Delegation is in charge with political dialogue, security aspects, commercial ties and cultural links between the EU and Gulf countries. It works both with governmental bodies and non-governmental entities, civil society, and business associations. Additionally, it conducts negotiations on behalf of the member states in the case of an approved mandate to do so. Saudi Arabia, in turn, only opened its mission to the EU in Brussels in 2018 (as a matter of fact four decades after China).

Recently, one could notice an upgrade in the GCC-EU relations. For instance, the 29^th EU-GCC Joint Council, co-chaired by High Representative Kaja Kallas and Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdullah Ali Al-Yahya, has as a main topic of interest the developments in the Middle East and Ukraine. The meeting was attended by Secretary General of the GCC, Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi. The ministers discussed GCC-EU cooperation on political, economic, security, cultural, and development domains, and opportunities to enhance the longstanding strategic partnership for mutual benefit. In included a broad review of last year’s GCC-EU summit in Brussels (held in October 2024) where the seeds for strategic partnership were sown and of the second high-level forum on security and regional cooperation between the GCC and the EU held in Kuwait on 5 October 2025.

On 6 December 2025, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, and the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, met in Doha to officially launch the negotiations for an EU–Qatar Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). This decision further strengthens the robust partnership between the EU and Qatar, building on the 2022 EU Joint Communication, which outlined a vision for a deeper partnership with the Gulf, and the joint agenda launched by Gulf and European leaders at the 2024 EU-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Brussels.

The EU identifies itself as a global norm-setter – a guardian of human rights and promoter of liberal democracy, as well as providing official development assistance. In the benefit of the organization, the EU is seen as the model of regional integration and a successful international organization. The EU is actively engaged in cultural diplomacy as a means to develop further relations. The EU is explicitly mentioning cultural diplomacy in the strategic documents such as EU’s 2016 Global Strategy as well as in the 2016 Joint Communication “Towards an EU Strategy for EU International Cultural Relations.” Culture fosters dialogue and prevents radicalization as a result of isolation. It also lays the groundwork for other actions that diversify economic growth and multilateral diplomacy.

The Partnership Instrument (PI) was created in 2014 to finance the cooperation of the European Union with the third countries. Over the period of 2014-2020, it had a budget of 954.8 million EUR. It replaced the previous Industrialized and High-Income Countries Instrument. Different forms of support are offered under the PI globally (including the Arabian Peninsula). It encourages dialogue, while delivering on the goals of the EU’s founding values, EU Global Strategy, the Commission’s priorities, the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The EU interest in such tools is to exert influence also as a normative power. As the EU does not gather in itself of employ “hard power” means, the EU is rather inclined to use “soft power” tools, such as public and cultural diplomacy complemented by diverse strategies in order to be able to reach societies globally and thereby execute its normative power.

In this framework, there is a lot to be achieved with the GCC bloc, but it also represents the reasons why the strategic dimension of the partnership is not easy to be fulfilled. For instance, the trade agreement is hampered by the business and human rights clauses the EU adheres to in virtually any external relation. For the GCC, the normative part is not something it usually concedes to. Therefore, it remains more interesting to engage bilaterally.

A case in point is that of the United Kingdom (UK) that benefits from a special status in relation to the GCC states that were once ruled by the British Empire. After Brexit, a UK-GCC free trade agreement has been negotiated since 2022 and it seems it could soon be completed. The British Minister of State at the Department for Business and Trade Chris Bryant traveled to Kuwait on 29 October 2025 hopeful that the two sides could reach an agreement soon. However, no agreement has been formally announced, once again seeming that the UK-GCC negotiations have stalled at the finish line.

There are numerous incentives to cooperate in bilateral formats, if the broad ones- GCC-EU- stall, mainly for the nature of the EU as an international normative power. As such, we notice the recent invitation of the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to attend the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Manama, Bahrain, in December 2025, marking the strong intention of the GCC bloc to deepen economic and strategic ties with Europe. The reasons for inviting a non-GCC leader are quite obvious, as among the GCC States- particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia- are interested in the diversification of economic and strategic partners beyond traditional allies such as the US and for a gateway to European financial networks. Several member states have set targets to increase the share of clean energy in their grids, as Gulf states try to pivot away from a reliance on oil. There is also interest to attract investors in infrastructure plans, and the EU is seen as a source of FDI.

For Romania, as a member state of the EU, there would undoubtedly be a lot of opportunities to build on. As one could notice, there is a framework of actions for the GCC-EU interacting as regional blocs and hopefully it will develop gradually more towards economic structural planning rather than simply the cultural and diplomatic plane. In the meantime, for most of the strategic benefits, the concrete developments still occur in the bilateral plane. Therefore, Romania could follow this pathway as well and identify means to yield results based on its European and neutral profile, diverse geography and proximity to both East and West.

Photo source: PxHere.com.

References:

Alhowaish, A.K. (2025) ‘The blue economy in the Arabian Gulf: trends, gaps, and pathways for sustainable coastal development’, Sustainability, 17, 8809. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/su17198809

Al Monitor (2025) ‘Meloni to attend GCC summit in Bahrain as Italy deepens Gulf ties’. Available at: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2025/12/meloni-attend-gcc-summit-bahrain-italy-deepens-gulf-ties

Arab News (2025) ‘UK trade deals point to closer GCC ties with Europe’. Available at: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2621213

European External Action Service (EEAS) (2025) Qatar–EU joint statement: launch of negotiations for a Qatar–EU Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). Available at: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/qatar%E2%80%93eu-joint-statement-launch-negotiations-qatar%E2%80%93eu-strategic-partnership-agreement-spa_en

European Commission (2025) Factsheet: Saudi Arabia. Available at: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/isdb_results/factsheets/country/details_saudi-arabia_en.pdf

Golebiowski, D. (2021) ‘The EU Delegation in Saudi Arabia and the GCC: communication, visibility and culture’, Politeja, 18, pp. 221–245. Available at: https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.18.2021.73.12

Gulf Cooperation Council Secretariat General (GCC-SG) (2025) Joint statement of the 29th Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the European Union (EU). Available at: https://www.gcc-sg.org/en/MediaCenter/News/Pages/news2025-10-6-11.aspx

Rahman, M.H. and Baldacci, R. (2025) ‘Trade, economic growth, and transportation sustainability perspectives of the Gulf–Europe corridor in the GCC countries’, Discover Sustainability, 6(1), 459. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43621-025-01283-w