Al-Jisr Activites

Training

         

Training Session on European Union (EU) – Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Relations

April 18 - 20, 2010
Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

  
The Gulf Research Center and the Institute for Diplomatic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began on Sunday, April 18th, 2009, a 3 day long Training Session on the European Union (EU) and  the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) relations. The training session will focus on communicating basic facts about the EU, its history, policies and institutions. In addition to more specific issues between the two sides including political governance and dynamics as well as economic, trade and financial relations. Then conclude with recommendations for improving relations between the EU and GCC.
 

Previous Training Session:

Workshop

 

The EU-GCC Partnership Security and Policy Challenges

March 16 – 17, 2010
Berlin, Germany

This workshop will be hosted and organized by Bertelsmann Stiftung in Berlin, focusing on issues of security and politics in current affairs. The coming years will bear witness to a potentially conflict-prone struggle over a number of resources, including access to raw materials and new markets. Regional partnerships and security structures must therefore be given adequate support, since a stable Gulf Region can serve as a reliable source of energy for Europe enabling prosperity, education and employment for its own citizens and neighbours. The conflicts in the Middle East and the Gulf region are interwoven with each other. In this context, Europe needs to be aware of the special security needs in the Gulf Region, with a particular emphasis on sub-regional structures for cooperation and security in the Gulf that are currently under discussion. Europe and the GCC thus have an interest in dealing with the conflicts in the region through the application of cooperation and dialogue, and the recent expansion of the European Union alongside the development of its foreign, security and defense policies can be used as an example for how to promote and initiate greater confidence-building among the GCC and its neighbors Iraq, Iran and Yemen. This is also relevant as the GCC continues to mature, opening the door to better prospects in the field of cooperative security measures. As in other workshops, recommendations will be formulated on how the security cooperation between the GCC and the EU can be improved and how a sub-regional security and cooperation structure for the Gulf Region can be established.

 

Research Project Workshop

 

The Third Al-Jisr Research Workshop

June 6 - 9, 2010
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

A third research project workshop on the challenge and potential of economic growth and diversificationin the GCC. A team of specialized researchers from both regions will be constituted and given access to all resources in the hands of the project’s partners. Once again, the strategy to establish such partnerships will prove to be precious as the resources and expertise of each partner will be fully used. The research project workshop will deliver a number of integrated future scenarios to judge the region’s regional and international economic role as well as the shifting functions of state and business in it.

 

Translations

As part of the overall dissemination and public diplomacy aspect of the project, the project will translate six key introductory textbooks on the European Union into Arabic. The finished products will be circulated in the Gulf through the cooperation of the Gulf Research Center with the Gulf universities, specialized institutes and governmental agencies.
 
There is a particular need for such textbooks at the university level in both undergraduate and graduate levels, in the view of establishing in the near future specialized European Studies program at local Gulf universities. The aim of this work package is to ensure the widest reach when spreading knowledge of the EU among the GCC citizens. The decision on which books are to be translated will be taken by the Steering Committee whose common expertise would be useful for this task.
 

Current translations under work:
 
  
 

Information and Dissemination

The project will ensure the wide dissemination and easy access in the long term to not only the follow up and results of the project but also to basic facts on the EU which will be regularly updated on a website designed and created for the project. This dissemination tool will ensure a sustainable circulation of information on the EU-GCC relations, allowing for further awareness raising.

The Gulf Research Center already has a dedicated web portal for EU-GCC relations and given the usefulness of this tool, it is expected that more targeted and specialized activities can have wide-ranging impact both in the EU but primarily in the GCC countries.