{"id":398125,"date":"2024-10-16T21:12:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T19:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/10\/16\/ue-paesi-del-golfo-accordo-libero-scambio\/"},"modified":"2024-10-21T19:08:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T17:08:28","slug":"trade-eu-gulf-countries-agree-to-work-on-a-free-trade-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/10\/16\/trade-eu-gulf-countries-agree-to-work-on-a-free-trade-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade: EU-Gulf countries agree to work on a free trade deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – EU-Arab Gulf countries <\/strong>moving forward\u00a0on trade: Leaders of the 27 member states\u00a0and representatives of the region’s Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates<\/span><\/span><\/span>) left the first bilateral summit aiming to\u00a0work toward a regional free trade agreement<\/strong>. It\u00a0is the most tangible result of a meeting that, nonetheless, was\u00a0marked by tensions over foreign policy dossiers and disagreements over current hot topics, notably the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As stated\u00a0in the joint statement at the end of the summit<\/a>, there is a willingness to “advance discussions” between the parties to reach a new trade model. The numbers, updated to 2022, highlight what is at stake.\u00a0Bilateral trade flows exceeded $204 billion in value, with the EU alone accounting for 13 percent of the Gulf Arab countries’ total trade<\/strong>. These numbers\u00a0could grow when considering the potential lowering of the current tariffs.<\/p>\n

For the EU, it represents an opportunity but also a risk. The trade balance between the EU and the Gulf countries favors the latter.<\/strong>\u00a0In 2022, exports to the single European market reached $106.3 billion, compared with imports of ‘made in EU’ products worth about $98 billion.<\/p>\n

The leaders gathered around the table viewed convergence for economic and trade integration as the main outcome of a meeting that was seen as historic because it was the first of its kind in Brussels. They also aim to boost investments, building on an already solid foundation. To date, the two sides have direct investments of more than 100 billion euros in energy, transportation, environment, tourism, and the pharmaceutical sector; this will continue. “We will continue to explore tailor-made agreements supporting trade and investments” <\/strong>was the\u00a0agreement in principle found: a starting point for a new season of bilateral relations.<\/p>\n

In the renewed intention for new trade regimes, there is a specific emphasis: “The importance of cooperation within the World Trade Organization” (WTO).\u00a0The centrality of the WTO<\/strong>, European and Arab leaders in the Persian Gulf stress, remains “essential to contribute to the full functioning of the dispute settlement mechanism\u00a0to strengthen the multilateral trading system.” A message against China and, in perspective, also against Donald Trump<\/strong> should the Republican candidate, who\u00a0is critical of the WTO, win in the Nov. 5 elections.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parties determined to advance discussions for a new regional trade pact. WTO’s role central. For the EU a risk, as trade balance is not in its favor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":398049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[25746,26279,25866,29403,29361,25882],"class_list":["post-398125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-trade-en","tag-energy-en","tag-agreement-of-free-exchange-en","tag-paesi-del-golfo-en","tag-investimenti-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398125"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398827,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398125\/revisions\/398827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}