I’ll tell you about the weight and rise of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates. Cinzia Bianco speaks
Start Magazine conversation with Cinzia Bianco, research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and author with Matteo Legrenzi of “The Arab Monarchies of the Gulf. New center of gravity in the Middle East” (Il Mulino)
“Italy does not depend on the Gulf for its energy needs, importing a modest share of oil from Saudi Arabia and natural gas from Qatar, respectively 8.1% and 9.2% of its imported needs in 2020. At the same time, the major Italian energy Eni is increasingly active in the Gulf area. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the world's leading producers of oil and natural gas, have the ability to influence the global energy market, which makes them essential interlocutors for a globalized economy of the G7 such as the Italian one”.
This is what underlines Cinzia Bianco, research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, where she deals with European foreign policy towards the Gulf monarchies, as well as non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, in a conversation with Start Magazine .
Bianco with Matteo Legrenzi is in the bookstore with the essay The Arab Monarchies of the Gulf. New center of gravity in the Middle East (Il Mulino) , a work that traces an all-round profile of a set of actors who play a strategic role in the balance of the wider Middle East and therefore also of the Mediterranean.
Why a book on Gulf Arab monarchies and why now?
We wrote this book mainly to try to undermine the Italian geopolitical vision of the Middle East which is absolutely Mediterranean-centric but above all blind to the latest geopolitical developments in the region whose center of gravity is in the Gulf. In fact, decisions that also concern existential questions in the Mediterranean are taken in the Gulf and no longer in the Arab capitals of the Mediterranean. So the fate of Cairo is decided in Riyadh, the fate of Tunis is decided in the Emirates.
Can you give us an example?
Of course, we have seen it in recent days in Tunisia with Kais Saied's decision to arrest the leader of Ennhada. This was something Saudi Arabia and the Emirates had been asking for for some time, and so Saied finally did what they asked. Therefore, in our book, I repeat, we try to undermine an obsolete vision of the region by trying to demonstrate that the main interlocutors are in the Gulf.
Who are the main players in the Gulf?
These are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are at the center of a series of very interesting dynamics. It is a trio within which there have been shifting alignments: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are bound by an increasingly close anti-Qatar bond. We saw it during the crisis that started in 2018.
A crisis that ended only recently.
Yes, formally it closed in 2021, when Saudi Arabia and Qatar became very close and the frictions for now under the radar between Saudi Arabia and the Emirates began. And what has become evident in 2023 is a Saudi leadership that is absolutely not being questioned by either the Emirates or Qatar. However, as Qatar increasingly aligns itself, the Emiratis are moving behind the scenes to cultivate their own interests even when this means going against the interests of Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, the regional leadership has definitely returned to the hands of the Saudis who had lost it in 2018 following the well-known killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
What are the economic relations between the Gulf monarchies?
The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the UAE emerges above all in the economic field. There is essentially a two-speed gulf: some nations, namely Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar in particular, are running very fast also in terms of economic diversification as well as energy transition and are trying to attract investments in infrastructure or logistics. The problem is that these countries all try to do the same things, they all chase the same investors and they all make the same projects. After all, they have a very similar structure of the economy, albeit with very different dimensions. So they are in competition.
What about the other monarchies?
As I said before, there is a part of the Gulf that runs less and it is Oman, Bahrain and above all Kuwait. The latter is entangled in matters of internal politics and is absolutely unable to get out of them. But even these countries still promote their economic visions also in terms of diversification, so they want to do more or less the same things as the part of the Gulf that runs more. For example, everyone wants Chinese investment, especially in infrastructure, but also in large industrial areas. Everyone wants to develop a manufacturing sector of a certain type. Inevitably, a tight competition ensues.
And in terms of cooperation, how are the Gulf monarchies doing?
This is still a very underdeveloped field. As I said, everyone tries to do the same things, but there's no system: there's very little collaboration.
What are the economic relations with Italy, for example in the energy field?
The Gulf monarchies have been energy powers for decades, commanding about a third of the world's oil and natural gas reserves. Italy does not depend on the Gulf for its energy needs, importing a modest share of oil from Saudi Arabia and natural gas from Qatar , 8.1% and 9.2% respectively of its 2020 import needs. At the same time, the energy major Eni is increasingly active in the Gulf area. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the world's leading producers of oil and natural gas, have the ability to influence the global energy market, which makes them essential interlocutors for a globalized G7 economy such as Italy's.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/cinzia-bianco-monarchie-arabe-golfo/ on Sun, 23 Apr 2023 05:16:06 +0000.