EU-GCC Relations: Dynamics, patterns and perspectives

Abstract

Relations between the European Union (EU) – understood as encompassing both the collective/institutional entity and the individual member states – and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have developed slowly and initially mainly on a bilateral basis. The history of relations between European states and the Gulf stretches 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 security agreements with European states. But at a collective level the story is much more recent. The GCC itself, of course, is only 25 years old, but on the EC/EU side too, a global approach towards the region and its constituent countries is a recent development.