{"id":20067,"date":"2012-06-07T10:04:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T06:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=20067"},"modified":"2012-06-07T10:11:02","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T06:11:02","slug":"the-gulf-union-does-not-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/editors-choice\/the-gulf-union-does-not-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gulf Union Does Not Exist – Apparently"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the story:<\/strong> The Gulf Union project does not exist.<\/p>\n

Eh?<\/strong> Apparently it\u2019s all a figment of the fertile imagination of journalists.<\/p>\n

Bloody journalists. Always up to no good. But what about those meetings GCC leaders keep having about it? Surely that must mean there\u2019s some sort of project?<\/strong> Not according to Yousuf Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah, the Omani Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs, who said categorically \u201cthere is no Gulf union... <\/strong>The commission to study the project no longer exists and the union exists now only among journalists.\u201d That\u2019s according to an Omani Arabic daily (comprised of journalists and therefore cannot necessarily be trusted. It\u2019s all a bit circular).<\/p>\n

Ok, bit weird that. So haven\u2019t we just had a meeting that focused on a common defense?<\/strong> We have indeed. Held last month, the meeting was actually supposed to be bigger than defense, but in the end that was the only thing that had anything close to buy in (and then not universally). Led by Saudi, and heavily supported by Bahrain, it was billed as the meeting to take the union to the next level. As is pretty much usual, it ended with the promise of some sort of decision at the next meeting in December.<\/p>\n

Ok, so going back to there is no union\u2026?<\/strong> We assume this is all about the context. In European terms, Oman is the Euro skeptic of the group. It ran for cover at the earlier opportunity when there was talk of a single currency, and has always been the most questioning of the GCC\u2019s members. This is perhaps unsurprising \u2013 as an economy it\u2019s very different, with considerably less reliance on hydrocarbons. The foreign minister could have been talking about Oman within the union, which would have made a lot more sense.<\/p>\n

Other options?<\/strong> Alternatively, it could just be Oman\u2019s position on the whole thing. In the two decades plus the union has been discussed, it has barely moved forward an inch. Perhaps he was saying it as he sees it \u2013 very unlike a politician.<\/p>\n

In the last few years, debate over the union has shifted from it being a political union, an economic union, a union of defense, an attempt at stronger cultural and social links\u2026 Until there is an agreement about what the six are pushing for, it\u2019s very unlikely the initiative will get traction. As the Editor at Large of Gulf News said here<\/a>, GCC leaders should focus on practicalities to make the GCC work better, not the imposition of an overarching political structure. A Gulf union will then come organically, but over a much longer time\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GCC union has shifted from being political, to economic, to a union of defense\u2026 Now we’re told it doesn’t even exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,173,893],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}