At a conference on economic and trade relations between the EU and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – which was organised at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday 18 October, the participants called for closer dialogue on trade and investment between the two partners. Negotiations for a free trade agreement were launched in 1990 but have been at a dead end for several years.
Despite the big volume of bilateral trade (which make the Gulf countries the EU's fifth biggest trading partner and the EU28 the Gulf states' biggest trade partner), there is still no trade agreement between the EU and GCC, the European Parliament's permanent rapporteur for the Gulf countries, Tokia Saïfi, stated.
Saïfi nevertheless hailed several actions and encouraging signs over the last few months for working on an effective and open dialogue, and the creation of a forum enabling concrete action and initiatives to encourage and manage bilateral trade, and to deepen bilateral cooperation.
She thus welcomed the first meeting of the dialogue on trade and investment between the EU and GCC that took place in Riyadh on 16-17 May, and at which the theme of investment was addressed and the need to find a framework for strengthening protection and market access for investors from the two respective blocs.
Saïfi said that initiatives for regulatory cooperation, like the exchange of good practice on sanitary and phytosanitary issues, are examples to follow for further integration of the EU and GCC economies.
GCC Assistant Secretary Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg underlined the importance of strengthening cooperation between the EU and GCC in many areas, including security and political issues.
We currently work together on many issues, Aluwaisheg stated. We can try to unblock the stalemate on the free trade agreement, but we can also try other things which, in our opinion, can produce immediate results, he said. One of these is strengthening the political and security dialogue between the EU and GCC, which includes the fight against terrorism, the fight against human trafficking and illegal immigration. These are objectives we both share, he said.
Aluwaisheg noted that the 1998 EU-GCC cooperation agreement established a framework for cooperation and that 15 working groups were set up to strengthen bilateral relations.
"One of the instruments we used was the free trade agreement negotiations. We put all our eggs in this basket for a while. We forgot other things and that led to a stagnation in developing the tools we need", Aluwaisheg stated.
"We think the free trade agreement is excellent. We agree on nearly all the issues. We also agreed on the political points", he said.
However, Aluwaisheg also pointed out an area of dispute – export duties.
"If we had been able to resolve this, we would have signed the agreement a long time ago. How can we have allowed a theoretical issue like export duties to affect progress? We think we can overcome this difficulty", he said.
The GCC representative called for a closer dialogue on trade and investment, for a broader partnership between business circles, and for increased cooperation on energy between the two parties.
We appreciate the quality of the trade and the content of the interventions, which generally seem to show both the great complementarity of our economies and the need for concrete action.
We will remain attentive to the need for diversification of the Gulf countries' economies, to which European companies can contribute. This concerns many sectors such as infrastructure, transport and energy, Saïfi said.
The principles of non-discrimination and fair competition must also be the basis of our economic and trade discussions, and this remains an important goal not only for the private sector but also for the European Parliament.
Deep integration of our economies, especially on the regulatory issue, is also an interesting area for work. This cooperation can evolve and be developed progressively, sector by sector, Saïfi concluded. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)