Opening remarks by President von der Leyen at the EU-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit
Your Royal Highness,
Your Highnesses,
Fellow leaders,
Your Excellencies,
A very heartfelt welcome to Brussels. Your presence here today and our first meeting in this format is absolutelyhistoric. We are breaking new ground by seeing each other as strategic partners. To be strategic partners means to listen to each other, to respect each other, to trust each other. It also means to empower each other, to rely upon one another and to join forces for crafting a shared future. We want a partnership that is positive, wide-ranging and that delivers. Our regions are complex. And it is only through dialogue and engagement that we can deliver. As you rightly said, Your Highness, the security and prosperity of the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council have become indispensable for each other.
Let me touch upon three points. We cannot implement our economic ambitions without security. Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Hamas-led terrorist attacks against Israel on 7 October have fundamentally undermined regional security in Europe and the Gulf. We need to do all in our power and mobilise all our diplomatic skills to stop the extremely dangerous escalation with now Iran launching a massive ballistic attack against Israel, or Houthis attacking our ships and disrupting freedom of navigation. We need immediate ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, protection of innocent civilians, humanitarian access and the release of all hostages. Only diplomacy can generate a sustainable pathway for security. The European Union is committed to peacebuilding, rooted in a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
Here in Europe, the impacts of Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine are felt strongly. It is a war against the sovereignty of an independent and peaceful country. I know how sensitive you are to the idea of sovereignty, and I am confident that we can work together and rely on you to stop this illegal Russian war. It is a war against universal values, against the right of a sovereign country and its absolute freedom to decide alone on its future.
My second point: We cannot implement our ambitions for sustainable growth without securing essential resources. As COP28 has proven last year, we are committed partners in the green transition.Gulf economies, like ours are making big strides in energy diversification. We both need critical raw materials to advance clean technologies. With your support, we can meet these demands responsibly. This is where our partnership can have great impact. Europe is equipped to bring cutting-edge sustainable technology to mining and refining operations in your region. So, together, we can develop the industries of tomorrow and build the local skills needed to sustain this transformation.
My third point: Energy partnerships can be the foundation for a bold new era. The Gulf is beginning a significant energy transformation, and I firmly believe that the energy advantages of this region extend to renewables, clean hydrogen, carbon capture utilisation, and storage. And we observe that clean energy projects by companies from the Gulf are becoming more and more visible within the region and beyond. This is the moment to work together to develop new value chains and markets for clean energy. By investing in interconnections and infrastructure, your region could become a clean energy hub, connecting Europe, Asia and Africa. That is why we are joining forces in ambitious projects like IMEC: the first-ever Economic Corridor, connecting India, the Middle East and Europe. Your Royal Highness, Your Highnesses, President Macron, and Prime Minister Meloni, we launched together with others the MoU last September in India for IMEC.
Trade and investments are the backbone of our relationship, and our economic ties are growing. We need to build more strategic connections, be it on trade, energy, of course innovation and technology, for example AI, and critically, people-to-people contacts. This is the reason for our ambition to extend the network of European Chambers of Commerce in the region, like the one recently opened in Saudi Arabia. Our economies and societies are going through deep technological transformations and value-based change. To face and shape them together, we need to synchronise our actions. And this is what we are doing.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As we know, today’s Summit comes at a critical moment. Conflicts around us demand urgent responses. We all know how hard it is to overcome the bitterness of war. But it can be done. To choose growth over conflict; to replace war with cooperation; and to turn hostility into opportunities. That is why Europe will always be a consistent partner for peace and economic progress.
Thank you. I look forward to our conversations.
Source – EU Commission
I would like to welcome you, and your delegations, to Brussels for this first-ever EU-GCC summit.
This summit opens a new — and I hope more ambitious — chapter in our cooperation. I hope this summit will help us to see more eye to eye on many of our shared challenges and that this will be the first of many meetings between our regions at leaders’ level. It is an honour to co-chair this Summit with you, Your Highness Sheikh Tamim, the Emir of Qatar. Thank you for your personal commitment.
With this summit, we send a powerful message to our citizens and to the world: the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are ready to build a Strategic Partnership fit for the 21st century. We are ready to work together to tackle global challenges. We want more stability, more security, more prosperity and more respect for international law.
I recently met with all of you to prepare this summit and we agreed that it should send a message of unity and a message of hope. We share a common goal – to promote growth and to generate more prosperity for our citizens. We can do this through sustainable investment and trade, and by working together on the two biggest transitions of our time: the digital and artificial intelligence revolution, and the green transformation of our economies.
We are aware of the importance of better connecting our regions, our economies and our people. We share a common responsibility to protect the rules-based international order and the UN Charter. As regional organisations, we also have a key role to play in conflict resolution, addressing climate change, strengthening multilateralism and human rights.
We all know that the current geopolitical context is extremely difficult and requires a lot of courage and clarity. I am convinced that we, in Europe and the Gulf, share a genuine wish to work much more together and to build bridges. Together, we can do more to promote stability, progress and solidarity in our regions and across the world.
Today global stability is once again under threat as a result of the dramatic situation in the Middle East, Russia’s war against Ukraine and the tragic situation in Sudan. These crises have caused enormous human suffering, so we must act more decisively and, again, change the course of history.
The future of our two regions is strongly connected. Today, we will discuss what we can do to build a positive agenda for the future that leads to more tangible benefits for our citizens and develops a roadmap for our future cooperation.
Finally, I would like to warmly thank the negotiating teams on both sides for their tireless work on the joint statement.
I look forward to a successful summit.
Source: EU Council
Press remarks by High Representative Josep Borrell after the EU-Gulf Cooperation Council summit
Check against delivery!
This was the first-ever summit of the leaders of the countries of the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This Summit sends a powerful message to our citizens and to the world. The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council are ready to build a Strategic Partnership for the 21st century. We want to work together to tackle today’s challenges.
Today we took another important step to elevate our partnership to a new level. We had very good discussions on intensified cooperation in key areas of mutual interest: trade and investment, energy, climate, regional security, and people-to-people contact.
The discussion focused, among other things, on current geopolitical challenges – and obviously on the situation in the Middle East – that are destabilising our regions and undermining the international order and international law: Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine and the widening conflict in the Middle East have been important topics in our discussions.
The joint statement [that] our leaders agreed today, is a significant milestone in our relations. It provides a new framework for enhancing our cooperation. Although we do not have the same positions on every issue, on many we see eye-to-eye and we agree.
In a joint effort we found common language on the most pressing issues of our cooperation. Let me say some words about them.
On trade and investment: the economic cooperation and trade relations are a centrepiece of our partnership. Here, there is a lot of untapped potential, there is a lot to do. This Summit reconfirmed the need to reinforce our existing cooperation on trade and investment between the two regions. We agreed to move ahead with negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement. And we should pursue all options to reinforce our economic cooperation and trade relations with all partners.
On people-to-people contacts: we discussed possibilities to bring our people closer together – this means cooperating more in areas like youth, education, sport, mobility and culture.
On energy and connectivity: these are critical issues; energy and climate change, they go hand in hand. Boosting our cooperation on these questions is good for both our regions. This is an essential part of our relations, as the Gulf countries are among the main global energy providers. We need to work together to ensure stable and reliable energy markets. This should go hand-in-hand with tackling climate change, biodiversity losses, and pollution.
On Ukraine: this is a vital priority for the European Union, because Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and is openly disregarding and violating the United Nations Charter.
The consequences of the Russian aggression against Ukraine are felt around the world – the Russian attacks on grain vessels in the Black Sea are undermining global food security. Russia is also turning energy and fossil fuels to geopolitical weapons.
Although we all agree that the United Nations Charter must be respected, and that this is essential for global stability, I will not deny that there are some differences in how the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council’s partners see this illegal war of aggression.
But in spite of these differences, we appreciate that many GCC partners have been very much engaged on this file, including by brokering exchanges of prisoners of war, and helping secure the return of Ukrainian children. We thanked the Gulf countries for engaging bilaterally with Ukraine and for participating in the ‘Summit on Peace in Ukraine’ and supporting the ‘Peace Formula’ process. I thank you for that.
On the Middle East; GCC countries are crucial partners for regional security. We commend their efforts to put a stop to the spiral of violence in the Middle East. In particular, the joint launch, in the margins of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), last September, of a Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, the only path to lasting peace, has been very much welcome. Our Summit today confirmed that our shared priority is an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, the release of hostages, and full humanitarian access to civilians in Gaza.
Same for Lebanon: the call for an immediate ceasefire and implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, was widely supported during the summit. We also condemned firmly the attacks on United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
To conclude, this Summit opens a new — and more ambitious — chapter in our cooperation for a better future of both regions, that will bring concrete benefits for our citizens, for our societies and for our countries.
Thank you.
Q&A
Mr. Borrell, you said in this final communiqué, you called on Iran to pursue regional de-escalation, but the sanctions you imposed on Iranian officials and Iranian companies, do you have any concerns that it could backfire? In the sense that you need Iran in the future to put some pressure on his allies – Hezbollah and Hamas – if you want a ceasefire in the future. This decision could bring about something opposite to what you hoped to achieve.
The sanctions have nothing to do with Hezbollah. The sanctions are related with Iran supplying arms to Russia against Ukraine.
My question to Mr Borrell is about the Global coalition for the Implementation of the Two-states solution. Could you share with us your impression but also the idea you get in this room of today how this initiative is going to advance or if it is advancing already.
On the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, I have been explaining during the Summit that for the last years, the Arab world and the Europeans have been trying to work together and to look for a framework where we can put our efforts together in order to build the Two-State-Solution – well, in fact the Palestinian state, because the Israeli state had already been created. And today, the Summit has considered that this effort, this Global coalition is a good way of pushing for this solution, which is the only way of getting peace and security for both [parties].I think I can say that everybody around the table agreed on that; not a single voice was against it. Now we have to go into practice and this Global alliance – where most of the Europeans and most of the Arabs are sitting together – can be a way of working on it. There will be a meeting in Riyadh, and another in Brussels before the end of my term.
Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-262445
Source – EEAS
Background on the EU-GCC Summit Brussels, 16 October 2024
The first EU-GCC Summit will take place in Brussels on 16 October 2024 under the theme: “Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity”.
The meeting brings together the 27 EU leaders and the leaders of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. The summit is co-chaired by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the Emir of Qatar, H.H. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Than, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the GCC. The European Union is also represented by the President of the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The GCC is also represented by its Secretary General, H.E. Jasem Al Budaiwi.
This marks the first high-level gathering of EU and GCC leaders, providing an opportunity to further re-invigorate relations between the two regions and bring them to a more strategic level. The summit aims to reinforce commitments to dialogue and cooperation, addressing shared global sectoral challenges such as trade and investment, climate change, connectivity, people-to-people contacts as well as the need to promote global peace and prosperity. Key geopolitical concerns, including Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the ongoing situation in the Middle East, will also be discussed.
Prior to the summit, leaders will hold bilateral meetings. EU-Gulf Cooperation Council summit, 16 October 2024
Sectoral cooperation
Sectoral cooperation between the EU and the GCC focuses on shared goals across key areas, including trade, green transition, security, energy, and connectivity.
Trade and investment
In 2023, the EU was the GCC’s second largest import partner (93.8 billion euros) and fourth largest (76.3 billion euros) export partner. The GCC region is the EU’s 6th largest export market and an important source and destination of investment for EU Member States. EU-GCC trade and investment relations are promoted through the Trade and Investment Dialogue and the EU-GCC Business Forum. The EU-GCC Summit will build on and advance the existing strategic partnership on trade and investment between the two blocs, as well as exploring new avenues to stimulate inter-regional business and trade cooperation.
EU trade relations with Gulf region (European Commission)
EU trade relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (infographic)
Energy cooperation and climate change
Energy cooperation is key to the EU-GCC relationship, as both regions are crucial in global energy markets. As the GCC countries are major investors in renewables and green hydrogen, the EU and GCC leaders will discuss how to further develop inter-regional collaboration on sustainable energy and climate initiatives.
Strengthening connectivity
The Summit will focus on promoting connectivity. The aim is to boost the two regions’ economic competitiveness and promote their central role in global trade routes. The discussion will highlight the need to improve connectivity between the EU and the GCC with a focus on telecommunications, sustainable transport and the digital infrastructures that link the two blocs.
Building bridges between people
People-to-people contacts are central to EU-GCC relations, and the summit will focus on expanding cooperation in visa applications, education, vocational training and cultural initiatives. Programmes such as Erasmus+ and student exchange opportunities will strengthen ties between the two regions, promoting mutual understanding and the sharing of knowledge. During the summit, leaders will reiterate their commitment to enhancing people-to-people initiatives between the two blocs.
Geopolitical challenges
Ukraine
The EU and GCC will discuss their commitment to international law and territorial integrity in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. A key topic will be the need for diplomatic solutions and humanitarian efforts to alleviate the ongoing suffering of civilians.
The Middle East
Amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, the EU and the GCC will focus on the need for continued collaboration to promote regional stability and de-escalation. The leaders will stress their commitment to promoting peace efforts, with a focus on reaching an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of hostages and ensuring much needed humanitarian assistance in Gaza, urging de-escalation across the region, as well as recalling the need to engage in a political process towards the two-state solution.
Other foreign policy issues
The EU and GCC leaders will address other important geopolitical challenges, including Iran’s role in the wider region, the ongoing situation in the Red Sea, Yemen and Sudan.
Background
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional intergovernmental organisation grouping six states of the Arabian Gulf: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. The General Secretariat of the GCC is in Riyadh (KSA).
EU-GCC relations are based on a Cooperation Agreement signed in 1989, which establishes regular dialogue on cooperation between the EU and GCC on economic relations, climate change, energy, environment, and research. The cooperation agreement also established an EU-GCC Joint Council at Foreign Ministers level that meets regularly and is prepared by a Joint Cooperation Committee discussing and advancing cooperation on sectoral areas of mutual interest.
Following a temporary halt, EU-GCC meetings were reactivated in 2021 with a series of high-level meetings covering all aspects of EU-GCC cooperation. In particular, the EU-GCC Joint Council held in Brussels on 21 February 2022 endorsed a Joint Cooperation Programme for the period 2022-2027 entailing joint activities and cooperation in a wide range of areas, including trade and investment, climate change, energy and green transition, people-to-people, counter-terrorism and humanitarian aid.
The most recent EU-GCC Joint Council and Ministerial meeting was held in Muscat, Oman, in October 2023. On that occasion, EU and GCC foreign ministers endorsed an updated version of the Joint Action Programme (2022-2027), discussed and agreed on enhanced cooperation and coordination in the field of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and agreed to establish a structured Security Dialogue (launched in January 2024) as well as a Joint High level Forum meeting on regional security (April 2024).
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the EU (EEAS)