In Theory: Gulf needs to take a step forward

Usually, during this period every year, there is dynamic activity by the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) ministerial councils which submit proposals and decisions to the regular Gulf summit that takes place in December.

These ministerial councils include those involved with the Gulf cooperation and comprehensive economy approach.

However, it seems that these activities have substantially decreased, despite the fact that there are developments and challenges faced by the Gulf that require more coordination to tackle these pending issues.

Among such issues are the economy-related ones, like removing obstacles that face the implementation of the Gulf Customs Union, which occupies a very important part of the Gulf's economic agenda and is considered a turning point in fulfilling the Gulf common market's requirements, or a step back in many of the Gulf bloc's achievements.

Completing the Gulf common market's requirements represents a step forward in unifying the Gulf's economy, laws and regulations, which will help in forming a very profitable Gulf bloc that will be able to defend the Gulf's interests in the increasingly complicated international relations.

The last meeting conducted by the Gulf ministers of economy delayed the implementation of the customs union for another three years due to disagreements on the distribution of customs revenues between the countries.

This issue is less important, especially if it is measured by the profit that can be achieved by member countries if they were to comply with the terms of this customs union, which will in turn pave the way for other beneficial agreements in the future.

This delay will affect all matters concerning the Gulf's economic cooperation for three years, which means that this economic cooperation will not see any progress until 2014. This is a relatively long period which can have multiple repercussions on the Gulf economic cooperation.

Furthermore, all previous decisions that were taken and implemented will be affected by this three-year delay. This turns the Gulf bloc into a smaller Arab League-like body.

The first Abu Dhabi summit — chaired by the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan — laid strong foundations that led to significant achievements made by all Gulf countries, the most recent of which is the joint-power grid which provides electricity to member countries during power shortages. It also helped reduce energy production costs.

It seems like the fields of cooperation have reached decisive stages that are related to some aspects of each country's sovereignty, considering that the Gulf has almost completed areas of cooperation that do not affect sovereignty.

The Gulf countries can either be satisfied with what the bloc has already accomplished or they can take a step forward with this bloc by making concessions, which is similar to the approach followed by European Union (EU) member countries.

The second option would complete the fundamentals for the bloc, on which Gulf nationals pin much hope.

Just like the summit in Abu Dhabi founded the Gulf and put in place the building blocks for cooperation, the coming summit will determine future approaches needed to be taken by the bloc as well as shed light on future prospects of cooperation in all fields.

The question that repeats itself is: Does the Gulf need an Arab League-like body, or does it need a bloc that strengthens its position on the economic map in light of recent developments in international relations, especially with the emergence of the World Trade Organisation, repeated economic, financial, energy and food crises? The second choice is the more important and correct one.

However, this requires the upcoming summit to rise to the challenge of coming up with proper solutions to the difficult dossiers and pressing issues it faces, while minimising issues pertaining to national sovereignty.

In view of globalisation, the global capital movement has crossed many taboos and previous restrictions while gaining global characteristics.

We hope that the Abu Dhabi summit will form a new beginning for the bloc, just like the first Abu Dhabi summit which marked the start of the cooperation from which the Gulf countries made several gains and achievements.

The writer is a UAE economic expert.