00:00The European Union is stepping up defense cooperation with Gulf countries with a new forum planned in Doha next month.
00:07And despite growing tensions across the Middle East, the EU sees an opportunity to build stronger ties across the region.
00:14I sat down with the EU's new ambassador to Qatar, Antonino Maggiore, to discuss what comes next.
00:21You've taken your post at a particularly challenging time.
00:24What are the biggest obstacles and opportunities to strengthening EU ties with Qatar and the GCC?
00:30What more can be done?
00:32I think every crisis brings opportunities.
00:38And this was very much confirmed by the project of a summit.
00:46As you know, the European Union GCC was planned for 24 October.
00:51Unfortunately, it has been postponed.
00:53But what has not been postponed are the objectives and the sense.
00:57It's a missed opportunity that we have to postpone it.
01:01But there's no postponement of the urgency of strengthening the relations.
01:07So now security and defense are becoming bigger priorities in the EU-GCC relations.
01:13Security is fundamental in the current geopolitical context.
01:19And I think it's a mutual interest.
01:21Europe and the Gulf, we are both exposed to challenges in terms of security.
01:29So it's very much how we can work together.
01:32We are working on a defense technology forum, EU-GCC, that will take place on 3 December here in Doha.
01:39There are two main concrete objectives.
01:44The first is to create a platform for our defense industry to work together with the Qataris counterparts.
01:56And possibly also from the GCC, from the other GCC countries.
02:01The seminar will offer the opportunity for the European Commission to present what we are doing internally.
02:09to build this common defense industry, which very soon can, in my opinion, in the future, become a partner for
02:22third countries.
02:23It's not that at the moment, we are focusing internally, but there is a debate ongoing in the European Union
02:30on how,
02:30especially with the new multi-annual financial framework, which is our budget, how we can explore the possibility
02:38to strengthen partnership with third countries, also as EU, in the defense sector.
02:45So this we will start to discuss in the seminar.
