The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the European Union (EU) have set out a new vision of a “strategic relationship.” It consists of a plan to revitalize and expand the framework of the joint cooperation agreement signed by the two in 1988. “Several joint projects have been either proposed or finalized by the GCC and the EU, including a meeting of counterterrorism experts at the GCC Secretariat here today,” Luigi Narbone, head of the Riyadh-based Delegation of the European Commission, told a press conference yesterday. The briefing was also attended by Antonia Calvo Puerta, deputy head of the European Commission mission and Dina El-Sourani, press officer, according to a report published today by Arab News. During the press conference, Narbone and Puerta spoke about the progressively improving relations between the GCC and the EU, cooperation in the field of education, the situation in the Middle East, Iran, terrorism, piracy on the seas, human rights, climate change and the international economic crisis. They also highlighted topics discussed at the GCC-EU ministerial meeting in Muscat on April 29. The Muscat meeting was attended by EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Narbone.
