The Gulf Research Center
will organize
The EU and the GCC: Prospects and Challenges under the Swedish EU presidency
Workshop in the Framework of the Al-Jisr project on GCC-EU relations
In cooperation with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden and with the support of the European Commission
Lund, Sweden
June 8 and 9, 2009
As part of the Al-Jisr project on GCC-EU Public Diplomacy and Outreach Activities, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University and the Gulf Research Center will hold a two-day conference entitled: “The EU and the GCC: Challenges and Prospects under the Swedish Presidency of the EU” to be held in Lund, Sweden from June 8th to 9th, 2009. The meeting will bring together around 30 academics and government representatives from Sweden, the EU member states, the GCC countries and regional institutions. In addition, several corporate representatives from Sweden, the EU and the GCC will join these 30 individuals. The objective of this meeting is to closely analyse and promote topics that are of current mutual interest between the EU and the GCC. It comes at a critical time when the institutional relations between Europe and the Gulf region are growing in both their scope and intensity. In light of the Swedish presidency of the EU to begin in July 2009, the meeting will develop and put forward a policy catalogue of issues that can further enhance EU-GCC relations and lead to greater mutual cooperation. As such, topics exploring security/terrorism, economics/global crisis, development/FDI and culture/identity have been identified as key focal areas of the discussion. The meeting will particularly encourage and aim for a free exchange of ideas. European and Gulf experts will present three papers under the broad topics named above over the two days. The presentations are meant to be brief to allow for sufficient discussion by all participating members. Following the conference, the papers will be published in a book through the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University.
