Brussels, 16/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - The EU and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) held their 16th Joint Cooperation Council at Troika level in Brussels on 15 May. Ursula Plassnik, President of the EU Council, the other members of the European Troika (Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner) as well as Abdullah Bin Zayed, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister, accompanied by his colleagues from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the Secretary General of the GCC, welcomed the mood prevailing during their talks on direct cooperation and on the international situation (Gulf, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, etc.). Ms Plassnik said: “We have all expressed our sincere resolve to push forward”, an almost ritual assertion when the two countries are seeking to give body to cooperation which, as far as one can see, is running out of steam given the fact that meetings are few and far between among industrialists and business leaders, and that there are repeated announcements of cooperation in the environmental sector but little commitment. Nonetheless, a new field is said to be open for exploration, that of cooperation in the field of energy and between universities. Cooperation is also envisaged in the monetary field, the ECB being ready to help GCC countries to create a joint currency.
Regarding the effort made over the past seventeen years for reaching a free trade agreement, both sides regularly affirm that their talks are close to being settled. This time, Commission experts say that the final phase is really very close to hand. It would take no ore than “a few weeks”, they assure. A special negotiation session, at ministerial level, is said to be on the cards very soon, probably in a Gulf country to settle the last outstanding points, as all the technical obstacles have been settled (rules of origin, double prices of gas that distort competition, public procurement, services, trade concessions for oil by-products, fisheries, etc.) and the various policies also appear settled (mainly the question of weapons of mass destructiion, etc.). According to a reliable source, all that remains is the agreement called for by the EU on “equity” between trade concessions made to the EU and those to other partners - e.g. the United States. During the final press conference, the GCC president expressed his side's interest for the proposed aid mechanism for the Palestinians contemplated by the Quartet. EUROPE will return to this in more detail.