For years, the relationship between the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman) has been portrayed as a one-way street: hydrocarbons flowing northwards, capital flowing in the opposite direction. Data collected by the Euro-Gulf Information Centre now tells a different and far more strategic story. In 2025, trade in goods between the two blocs reached €163.3 billion, with the GCC rising to sixth place among the EU’s overall trading partners and the EU becoming the Gulf’s second-largest trading partner. This is not a statistical anomaly, but a sign of a repositioning.

A set of scales that reflects a new division of labour

The first figure to examine carefully is the reversal of the trade imbalance. Europe exports goods worth €107.6 billion to the Gulf (65.9 per cent of total trade) and imports goods worth €55.7 billion (34.1 per cent). The old cliché of a relationship based on oil remains only partly true: mineral fuels still account for 71 per cent of European imports from the Gulf, but it is the composition of European exports that signals a qualitative leap. Machinery and mechanical equipment (20.1 per cent), aircraft and spacecraft (9.6 per cent), electrical machinery, motor vehicles and pharmaceutical products paint a picture of a European economy that sells to the Gulf precisely what makes it competitive: high technology and advanced manufacturing.

Even more significant is the trend in trade in services, which has doubled over the course of a decade to reach 84.4 billion euros in 2024 (+119% since 2014), and that of agri-food exports, which have risen to 10.4 billion, with European cereals increasing by almost 50 per cent in a single year. These are signs of a relationship that is moving beyond the energy sector to become full-scale economic integration.

The Gulf as an insurance policy for supply chains

This is where trade data meets geopolitics. The growth in EU–GCC trade does not take place in a vacuum: it is an integral part of the European ‘de-risking’ strategy launched following the 2022 energy crisis and the realisation of the EU’s dependence on Chinese value chains. The infographic illustrates this clearly by highlighting the Gulf’s role as a provider of energy security and supply chain resilience: the GCC is the EU’s leading supplier of refined oil (75 per cent from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), the leading supplier of unprocessed aluminium (80% from Bahrain and the UAE) and polypropylene (92% from Saudi Arabia), as well as accounting for 96% of imported liquefied petroleum gas and 97% of hydrogen and rare gases.

For Europe, diversification does not mean eliminating its dependence on hydrocarbons overnight, but rather spreading the risk. Having severed ties with Moscow, Brussels now needs reliable and politically manageable suppliers of energy, light metals, plastics and industrial gas: raw materials for which the Gulf has become indispensable. At the same time, the Gulf monarchies are pursuing their own post-oil diversification strategies (led by Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030) and are looking to Europe for technology, capital goods and know-how. The fit is almost perfect.

IMEC: the infrastructure that is supposed to underpin the architecture

All of this, however, relies on physical routes that 2026 has rendered dramatically vulnerable. Tensions in the Gulf and the recurring risk of the Strait of Hormuz being closed have served as a stark reminder to Europe of just how vulnerable it is to disruptions in critical trade routes. It is against this backdrop that the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) takes on a strategic importance that goes far beyond logistics.

Launched on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC brings together India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Europe, with Italy, France, Germany and the European Commission among the signatories. Its rationale is threefold and speaks precisely the language of European diversification. Firstly, it offers a faster and more economical alternative to the congested Suez Canal and the Red Sea route, which is now insecure. Secondly, it positions the Gulf not as a terminal but as the geographical pivot of the corridor: the UAE and Saudi Arabia occupy its logistical centre, transforming their strategic advantage into industrial capacity. Thirdly, it is the West’s main attempt to build a credible alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

For Europe, IMEC is the physical backbone of the trade relationship already illustrated by the figures: a route for transporting cereals, machinery, medicines and green hydrogen eastwards, and for receiving energy, metals and plastics from the west, even when traditional bottlenecks arise. It is, in other words, the infrastructure-based version of de-risking.

The necessary caution

However, it would be a naive think-tank mistake to present IMEC as a fait accompli. By mid-2026, the corridor remains more of a political framework than an active construction site: there are no binding financial commitments or defined construction timelines; friction between India and the United States has slowed its momentum; and the Gulf’s green hydrogen market — one of its key prerequisites — is still largely yet to be established. The most tangible progress is currently being made through bilateral channels, particularly in relation to the UAE. The IMEC Forum held in Trieste in March 2026 confirmed Italian and European interest, but the enthusiasm expressed in the press releases has not yet been fully reflected in a concrete implementation plan.

The fundamental political issue remains. Figures from the Euro-Gulf Information Centre confirm that EU-GCC trade is already a well-established and expanding reality; IMEC is a bid to make it resilient. European trade diversification is not just about ‘who’ – finding new partners beyond Russia and China – but about ‘how’: ensuring that trade routes to those partners can withstand the next crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf has become the testing ground for both questions. And the answer will say a great deal about Europe’s ability to finally see itself as a geo-economic player and not merely as a market.