The 25th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council once again threw up the question: How far has the GCC moved toward fulfilling the original vision of an economically and politically powerful and robust organization at the heart of one of the world’s most important economic regions? The answer is: Quite far, but not far enough. Here it is important to note that the criticism by some members including the Kingdom of the trade agreement that Bahrain and the United States have entered into need not be seen, as some commentators have, as a row that damages the GCC. It is unrealistic to imagine that the council must have a single view on all issues or it will not work at all. That was never in the minds of the founders. The strength of the GCC will continue to come from the fact that here are six countries entitled to differ on various points but all sharing a unity of purpose in leveraging their economic and political strengths on a single fulcrum.
The member states are making earnest efforts to ensure that the scope for inter-GCC economic cooperation is used to its full potential. They have real opportunities for, and real gains to be made from, closer commercial ties. The ability to enter each other’s markets across the border is expected to provide the bedrock for growth in other areas. No less important will be the freer movement of investment between the countries. This will ease capital formation and boost the liquidity of stock markets.
It is only when the GCC realizes its full potential as an economic bloc that its presence will be felt internationally and its influence on the world stage become commensurate with its economic weight. At a time when economic and trade blocs are the norm, our region needs an effective GCC for international companies and the politicians who seek to support their national firms to see it as a key calling point when they are seeking to take the political pulse in the Gulf region.
The members of the GCC have, as in the case of all other alliances and groupings, priorities that prevent them from engaging more fully in its task. In part this is because each member state is busy coping with demanding and complex challenges at home. There is an argument that the focus should, for the immediate future, continue to remain on domestic growth. Yet this is to ignore the role that the GCC can play to foster and coordinate that growth and help each of the six economies align themselves in advance of a more dramatic and far-reaching linkage.
All the frustrations that have emerged from the slow advance of the GCC toward its founders’ vision underline the importance of getting it right. They do not at all prove that the GCC has lost its way and is becoming in any way irrelevant. The organization now finds itself in the front line of a newly insecure world. There are regional security and defense issues for which the GCC is the obvious forum for discussion and coordinated planning. Indeed the serious new challenges that the Gulf now faces ought to be a spur for greater concentration on the GCC, even though domestic demands are already making a high call on members.
