The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council has suspended talks with the European Union over a free-trade agreement, the GCC’s secretary general said on Tuesday.
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“We have informed the European side of the suspension of negotiations on a free-trade accord,” said Abderrahman al-Attiyah, interviewed by telephone in Muscat, where he is preparing for the annual GCC summit.
“We are suspending the negotiations until the European side agrees to sign the (most recent) draft accord, adding that the petroleum-rich monarchies had “made many concessions and responded favourably to the EU’s many demands.”
The decision came as no surprise, with member nation Qatar warning on December 15 that a suspension was in the offing if an impasse in the 20-year-old negotiations continued.
“Some day in the near future the GCC states will decide to suspend the talks which have so far had no result,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said in Singapore.
The GCC — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — has been in talks with the now 27-member EU about a free trade agreement since 1988.
Sheikh Hamad said the accord should have been signed at the end of November during a visit to Qatar by Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France which holds the rotating EU presidency.
He said the European Union “retracted at the last minute.”
“The negotiations with Europe have gone on for too long, and our European partner must know that the talks cannot last indefinitely,” Sheikh Hamad said.
Europe “is the GCC’s largest trading partner, and if it wishes to expand on that partnership it must reconsider” its position on the talks, he said.
