MESSINIA—The many temple ruins that dot this region are a reminder that, in Ancient Greek myth, mortals were subject to the whims of mercurial deities. Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and the rest did what they pleased, leaving everyone else to suffer the consequences. Today, the major disruptive forces shaping the world are not Olympian gods but geopolitics—US military action in Iran, Tehran’s attacks on Gulf states, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
But the world leaders who gathered here in Costa Navarino, Greece, for the inaugural Europe Gulf Forum this past weekend are not powerless before these forces. They are adapting and taking action—increasingly recognizing the untapped potential of enhanced strategic collaboration with each other.
Hosted by the Antenna Group, in partnership with the Atlantic Council, the Europe Gulf Forum is a response to a fairly straightforward problem: While Europe and the Gulf maintain meaningful ties across a number of specific sectors and policy areas, the countries in these regions are likely to be more successful if they seek to better leverage their comparative advantages and jointly address emerging geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges. Toward this end, the Europe Gulf Forum brought together more than twenty prime ministers, heads of state, and senior policymakers for private, candid discussions about the challenges they face.
Among the attendees from Europe were Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy. Among those from the Gulf were Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir, and Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, were there as well. (See a full list of the participants here.)
The meetings were off the record, so we won’t share what was said in them. But the hunger of these leaders to not only speak to each other as a group in a private setting but to identify areas for near-term action was immediately apparent from the outset of the forum.
The war in Iran is fundamentally changing the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and security landscape in the Middle East. Iran has launched thousands of drones and missiles on Gulf states, destroying critical infrastructure and taking innocent lives. It has closed the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a global energy supply shock that will only worsen should it extend into the summer. Meanwhile in Europe, Russia continues its war on Ukraine, drone incursions along NATO’s eastern flank are increasingly frequent, and European states are grappling with how to replace cuts in imported Russian oil and gas with other sources.
Energy security and defense were front and center coming into the forum, but they were not the only issues on leaders’ minds. Supply chains, artificial intelligence, and connectivity were consistent themes generating cross-regional interest in how to better collaborate. The dozens of bilateral meetings that took place between group discussions attest to the desire of leaders to drill down on specifics and move with speed to advance their joint objectives and secure concrete partnerships.
Finally, it’s notable that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing at nearly the same time the Europe Gulf Forum was beginning. As the United States and China, two geopolitical titans, pursue increasingly more transactional, self-interested policies, there are open questions about where this leaves middle powers like those in Europe and the Gulf, which often rely on collaboration and multilateralism to augment their influence and expand their opportunities.
So, where do these efforts go from here? In the year before the next Europe Gulf Forum, it will be important to see if already established but nascent ideas, such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, expand in the coming months. And watch for brand-new projects to emerge as well, from collaboration on cutting-edge technology to expansions of energy resilience projects.