The Saudi Arabia's Relations with the European Union
The European Union today considered the leading regional organization after the United Nations, through its role in the field of international relations, whereas this union represents a great power in influencing the international resolutions, two of its members (France and Britain) are permanent members of the Security Council. The Union represents as a bloc, the pre-eminence of 28 European United Nations, therefore its stance is capital on all regional and international disputes and differences.
The Relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and
the European Union in the Bilateral Framework
The bilateral solid relation that binds
the two sides in most aspects, is enhanced by mutual visits at the
highest levels to conferring in political and economic topics, therefore both
sides are partners in the field of security
and combine their efforts to counter terrorism. The European Union is the main
commercial partner for the kingdom by 15.3 percent of its total trade; bilateral trade volume between
the two sides reached 63.8 billion euros in 2013.
Forasmuch, this represents an increase of 18 percent compared
with 2011 (54 billion) and 40 percent increase compared to 2010 (39 billion
dollars).
Kingdom's relations with the EU within the Multilateral Framework
- This relationship is evident in the framework of cooperation between the Cooperation Council for the Arab Gulf States and the European Union. whereas the European Union and the UK are facing (conjointly with the GCC) common challenges such as international terrorism and extremism, energy security, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, environmental degradation; furthermore, the two sides have their own views regarding some issues related to human rights.
- Both sides (the Gulf and the European) hold annual periodical meetings (ministerial meetings, the political high-level dialogue meeting, the informal political dialogue meeting, the Joint Cooperation Committee meeting, the economic dialogue meeting, and other specialized meetings at different levels).
- This relationship is also evident in the framework of regional cooperation between the Arab League and the European Union. Whereas there is coordination between Member States about many issues of common interest, and therefore both sides hold (the Arab and the European) every two years a ministerial meeting preceded by a coordinative meeting.
