Can the ongoing wars and conflicts in the Middle East develop into an order for peace and cooperation? For now, the answer is a sceptical “maybe.” However, the Helsinki process and previous regional initiatives show that cooperation can emerge even in times of deep political division. The EU–GCC partnership could provide a starting point for broader regional cooperation by developing practical projects with other Middle Eastern states. Specifically, protection, diplomacy, and interconnectivity are three areas in which such cooperation could be advanced.

In August 1975, 35 heads of state and government from East and West signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki. In the midst of the Cold War, this created a common political framework for stability and cooperation. The Final Act is regarded as a milestone in the beginning of overcoming the East–West conflict and as an important step in détente.

Now, a little more than fifty years later, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb published an op-ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Financial Times entitled ‘A New Helsinki for the Middle East’. At its core, the two heads of state argue that the trust deficit that has existed in the Middle East for decades should not be a reason to postpone political rapprochement. Trust between conflict parties does not have to precede the process, they argue, but can instead emerge through it.

Helsinki and the Middle East: similarities and differences

The Helsinki process, too, emerged at a time of deep mistrust that was to be gradually overcome. When Finland launched the initiative in 1969, Europe was divided, the Prague Spring had just been violently suppressed, the Vietnam War was raging, and Israel and Egypt were also engaged in fighting around the Suez Canal. It thus took around six years from the beginning of the diplomatic initiative to the signing of the Final Act in Helsinki in August 1975. In his statement on the signing of the Final Act, then German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt pointed to the lengthy process of building trust and emphasised: ‘Decades of confrontation are not followed overnight by an era of cooperation.’

As similar as the conflict dynamics of the Cold War and the current wars and crises in the Middle East may be in terms of their deficit of trust, their political and regional contexts are fundamentally different. During the Cold War, a clear structure of actors and alliances could be identified, with the Eastern and Western blocs and the group of non-aligned states.

Furthermore, the security order was much more strongly shaped by sovereign states and institutionalised alliances, whereas in today’s Middle East, non-state armed actors and militias also play an important role in determining issues of security and statehood. In addition, there are no diplomatic relations between some of the region’s key states.

Nevertheless, the Helsinki process, like other initiatives in the Middle East, can provide important inspiration for how regional actors in the Middle East can themselves develop a structure for cooperation and security despite changing wars and conflicts and their considerable geopolitical and geo-economic costs. The need to start thinking about regional approaches to conflict resolution now is more pressing than ever.

Following Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, a web of multiple dimensions of war has spread across the entire Middle East. The escalations between Israel and the United States and Iran are affecting the economic and military security of all countries in the region. The Arab Gulf states in particular are directly affected by the latest confrontation. Developments in recent years have also made it increasingly clear that the prospects for resolving the Israel–Palestine question improve if the conflicts with Iran and its allied militias are settled at the same time. However, despite this need, there is currently no sign of an independent, broadly supported regional initiative.

The idea of regional security and cooperation formats in the Middle East is not new, however, and previous successes and failures can indicate where the potential and limitations of such initiatives lie.

Regional experience offers lessons of its own

One example is the multilateral working group on Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS), which emerged in the aftermath of the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference in 1991. One distinctive feature was that both Israel and Palestinian representatives, as well as Arab states, were represented. Concrete proposals for regional communication and military cooperation were discussed, and a draft declaration of principles inspired by the Helsinki process was drawn up.

The initiative stalled shortly afterwards, however, due to disagreements over a nuclear-weapons-free zone and setbacks in the Arab–Israeli peace process. In addition, the non-participation of key states such as Iraq and Iran prevented the working group from fulfilling a stabilising function for the region as a whole. However, the Middle East Desalination Research Center in Oman (MEDRC), a concrete cooperation project of the Madrid process that emerged from the working group on water resources at the time, continues to exist to this day. This multilateral project demonstrates that cooperation based on concrete shared interests can withstand political setbacks.

The second example can be found in the format of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation between the EU and its southern Arab neighbours and Israel, which was established in Barcelona in 1995. At their ministerial meeting in Stuttgart in 1999, the 27 governments had already agreed on guidelines for a ‘Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability’, with the aim of anchoring security in the region through cooperation and institutions. Yet renewed escalation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict put the entire project on hold, meaning that the adoption of the charter planned for the ministerial meeting in Marseille in 2000 was postponed.

This experience once again demonstrates that a settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is necessary for far-reaching and inclusive subregional cooperation. At the same time, thematic projects should be used to advance confidence-building cooperation. The basis can either be a sufficiently strong shared interest, as the example of MEDRC shows, or a common perception of a threat, as in the case of the international coalition against the so-called Islamic State (IS). The alliance, established in 2014, now comprises 90 states and organisations. It is worth emphasising that Israel and Iran, although not officially members of the coalition, nevertheless shared the threat perception posed by IS and contributed in different ways to combating it.

Thematic cooperation can therefore begin without broad political consensus. For example, Israel and the United Arab Emirates are deepening their military cooperation in response to Iranian drone and missile attacks. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have also recently concluded a joint defence agreement. For an inclusive regional security and cooperation order, however, further conditions apply, including broad and sustainable political understanding as well as a functioning institutional mechanism.

The Arab League and the Abraham Accords already provide regional formats that could, in theory, offer a framework for joint action in the region. In practice, however, both formats face limitations. The Arab League remains an association of Arab states and excludes relevant non-Arab neighbours such as Israel, Iran and Turkey. It also has only limited apparent capacity to shape developments in the region. The Abraham Accords demonstrate that Arab–Israeli normalisation is possible, but expanding their membership is difficult as long as no progress is made on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The question therefore arises as to which stable structure could serve as a driver of further regional cooperation under current conditions.

We argue that the European Union’s (EU) Strategic Partnership with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), established in 2022, should be upgraded and expanded as a driving force for the political stabilisation and socio-economic recovery of the region as a whole. The strength of the EU–GCC partnership lies in the high density of political, diplomatic, economic and scientific cooperation within a clear institutional framework. It also creates the opportunity to gradually involve other regional actors on a project-by-project basis.

The broad range of cooperation between the EU and the GCC, as in the Helsinki process, demonstrates the potential of a multidimensional understanding of security. Cooperation already covers areas such as regional conflict diplomacy, humanitarian assistance, maritime security, trade and connectivity, as well as exchange and training projects.

EU–GCC cooperation should focus on protection, diplomacy, and interconnectivity

It is crucial to jointly develop individual EU–GCC cooperation projects with one or more Middle Eastern states and open them up to their participation. This form of triangular cooperation can have a stabilising effect beyond the partnership itself and become the starting point for broader regional cooperation. Three areas lend themselves to this: protection, diplomacy and interconnectivity.

The first could focus on protecting shared critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables running from the eastern Mediterranean through the Red Sea to the Gulf. It also appears sensible to strengthen maritime missions aimed at securing trade routes. To this end, the EU and GCC would need to clarify which political, financial and military resources they can mobilise in order to build credible joint protection and response capabilities and open up this cooperation to additional states in the region.

In the field of diplomacy, the EU has greater opportunities to involve the GCC states more closely in conflict resolution while also assigning them greater responsibility. This applies in particular to Israel–Palestine, Yemen and Sudan, where the Gulf states have considerable political influence. There is potential, for example, to strengthen the Global Alliance for the Two-State Solution, which could serve as a framework for direct Israeli–Palestinian negotiations following elections in Israel and Palestine in autumn 2026. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in particular should use their influence to promote a peaceful, sovereign and united state order. In Sudan, the EU should continue to press for an end to external support for the RSF militia and for the influence of the Gulf states to be used more strongly to end the violence and support state and economic reconstruction.

Alongside diplomatic cooperation, new regional trade, energy, data and transport links should be created in order to unlock existing economic potential. Dependence on individual chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz should be reduced, for example through a network of land corridors connecting the Arab Gulf states more closely with south-eastern Europe via the Levant and Turkey. A focus should also be placed on renewable energy, as well as on joint reconstruction partnerships for Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Lebanon and Palestine. European experience with economic integration can serve as a guide here, helping to harness the peace-building potential of economic interdependence.

Rallying political support

For the proposed EU–GCC projects to have a genuine regional impact, they require political support from the EU member states. The presidents of Germany and Finland could use their Helsinki initiative to raise awareness of shared European interests in the Middle East and advocate for joint EU engagement in the region. It would therefore be sensible to mobilise a group of particularly committed member states in order to strengthen existing structures and pool diplomatic capacities and financial resources.

In addition, the EU Special Representative for the Gulf region, Luigi Di Maio, should be strengthened both in terms of staffing and politically. With these political signals and concrete project ideas, the EU and its member states could prepare more strategically for and make better use of the upcoming second summit of the EU and GCC heads of state and government in Riyadh. This would ensure that Brussels no longer falls short of its own potential in shaping European Middle East policy. The GCC, for its part, needs to act cohesively so that joint projects do not fail because of differing national interests.

On this basis, the EU–GCC partnership could indeed become a driver for broader regional cooperation and security in the Middle East and, in the longer term, pave the way for a Helsinki-inspired conference for inclusive cooperation in the region.

About the authors

Christian Hanelt is Senior Expert for European Neighbourhood Policy and the Middle East at the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

David Schäfer works on European foreign and neighbourhood policy in the Europe’s Future Programme at the Bertelsmann Stiftung.