Making the Gulf Cooperation Council the EU of the Middle East

Abstract

European countries must assume the leadership vacated by the United States under President Trump by a bold new political initiative in the Middle East. The EU should engage Saudi Arabia on extending the consultations and cooperation within the GCC – the Gulf Cooperation Council – to the other major regional states, in addition to Saudi Arabia they are Iran, Turkey and Israel. These states form the Middle East state system by mutually generating their behaviour. Specifically, the EU should urge that GCC adapt the EU third country and neighbourhood policies that would be the quickest way to turn the GCC into the EU of the Middle East. A strategic discourse adapting a model from cognitive behavioural therapy can introduce the European transformation as a vision in the state system.