Between Standards and Interests: Does the EU Still Have Any Influence in the Middle East?

Abstract

The European Union’s influence in the Middle East persists, but is uneven, indirect, and structurally constrained rather than absent altogether. This paper argues that the EU possesses real leverage in the region – most consequentially through its energy and trade partnerships with Gulf Cooperation Council states – but systematically fails to convert that leverage into coherent strategic power. Drawing on normative power theory and its realist and sociological institutionalist critiques, the paper identifies three mutually reinforcing failures: normative incoherence, illustrated by the EU’s inability to reconcile values-based rhetoric with energy dependency in the Gulf; political fragmentation, most visibly in the divided response to the war in Gaza; and institutional paralysis, produced by the unanimity requirement governing the Common Foreign and Security Policy. The paper further argues that effective EU engagement in the Gulf requires a shift toward cultural diplomacy – building relationships on the basis of mutual respect, long-term commitment, and reciprocal interest – rather than normative conditionality. Empirical evidence drawn from EU-GCC trade and energy data demonstrates both the scale of existing EU leverage and the risks of constructing new structural dependencies to replace Russian supply chains. The paper concludes with a concrete institutional recommendation: the activation of the passerelle clause under Article 31(3) of the Treaty on European Union to introduce qualified majority voting in defined areas of EU foreign and security policy, as a necessary precondition for strategic coherence.

Introduction

In November 2022, German officials arrived in Doha wearing rainbow wristbands while simultaneously finalising a fifteen-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) agreement with Qatar Energy. The image captured, with rare precision, the structural contradiction at the heart of EU foreign policy in the Middle East: one cannot demand adherence to values, then return to the same door asking for gas – and expect either credibility or leverage in return.

This paper argues that EU influence in the Middle East persists, but is uneven, indirect, and constrained by internal divisions and a lack of strategic coherence rather than absent altogether. The EU possesses real structural leverage that lies in its energy and trade partnerships with Gulf states but systematically dissipates it through normative incoherence, institutional paralysis, and the absence of a clear hierarchy among competing objectives.

This paper addresses a gap in existing scholarship by examining specifically how the EU-Gulf energy partnership, transformed by the post-2022 diversification policy, can be operationalised as strategic leverage and what institutional and diplomatic preconditions make this possible. The three theoretical lenses applied – normative power theory, realist critique, and sociological institutionalism – are selected because together they span the most directly applicable analytical perspectives on EU external action in the Middle East.

Was There Ever a Normative Power in the Middle East?

Ian Manners holds that the EU shapes international politics through its structural difference – its founding commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law – rather than through coercion (Manners, 2002, p. 240). Hyde-Price counters that ethical commitments are ‘second-order’ concerns that yield whenever they conflict with core national interests, and that the EU is better understood as a collective instrument for member-state interest pursuit (Hyde-Price, 2006, pp. 222-223). Bicchi adds that EU external policy tends to export ‘Europe’ rather than neutral norms – an unreflexive institutional equivalance that partners in the Middle East experience as eurocentric imposition (Bicchi, 2006, p. 299).

The critical question is whether the normative power label ever accurately described EU Middle East policy, or whether current constraints represent continuity rather than decline. Hollis answers directly: the EU has consistently prioritised its own security interests over democratic promotion in its southern neighbourhood (Hollis, 2012, p. 82). The 2022 Qatar World Cup illustrated this starkly – normative posturing produced political embarrassment at home and bewilderment among Gulf partners, while energy deals proceeded regardless. The war in Gaza confirmed the pattern: with some member states demanding ceasefires and sanctions while others shielded Israel politically, the EU could not agree even a common position, further damaging its image across the region. With anti-democratic tendencies rising within several member states, the EU is also poorly positioned to export values it cannot consistently uphold at home.

Gulf Energy Partnerships: Real Leverage, Absent Strategy

The EU is a market of nearly 450 million consumers and the world’s largest trading bloc. EU-GCC total trade in goods reached €161.7 billion in 2024, with EU outward foreign direct investment stock in the GCC amounting to €235.9 billion – a deeply interlocked economic partnership, not a one-directional dependency (European Commission, 2024). On energy, the post-2022 shift has been dramatic: Russian gas fell from over 40% of EU imports before the Ukraine invasion to below 15% by mid-2023. Gulf states filled part of the gap; in 2023 Qatar alone exported 15.5 bcm of LNG to the EU, with Italy importing 6.8 bcm, Belgium 4.3 bcm, and France 2.3 bcm; from 2022 to mid-2025, EU countries spent approximately €34.4 billion on Qatari LNG alone (IEEFA, 2025).

The EU has responded institutionally: it appointed its first Special Representative for the Gulf in June 2023, opened a delegation in Doha, and held the first-ever EU-GCC Summit in October 2024 in Brussels (EEAS, 2024). The UAE’s partial withdrawal from OPEC+ opens further direct negotiating space, and the EU has formally launched bilateral free trade agreement talks with the UAE – the first comprehensive EU trade deal in the Gulf region (Sidło, 2025).

A further strategic opportunity the EU cannot afford to neglect is Syria. Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria entered a fragile but consequential transitional moment – a potential land bridge between Gulf states and Europe where EU normative ambitions, Gulf financial capacity, and European strategic interests in migration, stability, and regional trade routes align.

What data alone cannot capture is a structural asymmetry in diplomatic culture. Gulf states build relationships on personal trust, long-term commitment, and reciprocal respect between sovereign partners. As of 2024, the EU is no longer the leading trade partner for any GCC country, having been overtaken by China in four of the six GCC states (Sidło, 2025).

Effective EU engagement requires cultural diplomacy: sustained high-level relationships and a willingness to discuss shared interests – green transition, technology transfer, food security, regional stability – without subordinating every interaction to a human rights agenda Gulf partners find inconsistent. Qatari sovereign wealth fund stakes worth approximately €25.8 billion in Germany alone illustrate what a relationship built on mutual investment rather than normative hierarchy can look like. The strategic stakes of this partnership became undeniable in early 2026, when the closure of the Strait of Hormuz exposed the full cost of Europe’s structural unpreparedness.

The economic consequences for Europe have been immediate and severe. The conflict coincided with historically low European gas storage levels estimated at just 30% capacity following a harsh 2025–2026 winter. European natural gas prices rose 63% in the week following the outbreak of hostilities on 28 February 2026, surpassing even Asian prices typically the highest in global markets (Tagliapietra, 2026).

Europe’s exposure to geopolitical shocks remains rooted in its continued reliance on imported fossil fuels traded on volatile global markets – even after shifting dependency from Russia to other suppliers. Rather than slowing down the low-carbon transition, the new tensions demonstrate that the deployment of clean, domestically produced energy sources should be accelerated (Tagliapietra, 2026). The EU had no coordinated contingency framework for a Strait of Hormuz closure, no unified demand-reduction strategy, and no pre-agreed mechanism for collective LNG procurement under crisis conditions.

The EU’s economic interests are now materially threatened by a conflict in the Middle East. The argument that the EU should protect those interests through a coherent Gulf strategy is no longer theoretical. The UK and France have hosted conferences on reopening the Strait, expressing readiness to contribute to ensuring safe passage (Élysée, 2026) – but notably without a unified EU voice or mechanism. This is what institutional incoherence costs in practice. 

Gulf partnerships must therefore be embedded in a broader strategy that combines three elements: acceleration of the green transition to reduce structural fossil fuel dependency; a unified EU emergency procurement and storage coordination framework for crisis scenarios; and – where European economic interests and the security of critical maritime routes are directly threatened – a willingness to contribute to collective security measures.

Institutional Failure: Unanimity as the Root Cause

The strategic incoherence described above has a common institutional cause. The unanimity requirement governing the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) under Articles 24 and 31 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) grants any single member state the power to block collective positions regardless of the preferences of the other twenty-six. Between 2016 and 2022, member states exercised veto rights at least thirty times in the Common Foreign and Security Policy matters (Wessel and Szép, 2022, p. 8). In the Gulf context, this has meant bilateral energy agreements negotiated separately by Germany, France, and Italy undercut any prospect of collective conditionality. Unanimity also opens the door for third countries to divide the EU by instrumentalising individual member states’ economic dependencies (Bendiek, 2023).

Anti-European parties are advancing across the continent. One cannot assume, as the Hungarian case demonstrated, that democratic mechanisms will self-correct before individual governments learn to use European rules to obstruct European institutions. The Lisbon Treaty already provides the instrument to extend QMV to specified CFSP areas without full treaty revision under Article 31(3) TEU (Lațici, 2021, p. 4). So, the political window exists. What is missing is the collective will to activate it.

Recommendation and Conclusion

This paper makes one concrete recommendation: the EU should activate the CFSP passerelle clause under Article 31(3) TEU to introduce QMV for non-military foreign policy declarations and sanctions decisions, beginning with energy-related external policy. As a complementary step, it should develop a differentiated engagement framework that separates energy and trade partnerships from democracy promotion, and embeds Gulf relations in a cultural diplomacy logic rather than normative conditionality. The goal is not to abandon values, but to be consistent about when and how they apply.

This analysis is subject to limitations. It is qualitative in nature and does not model the precise political conditions under which QMV activation would succeed among member states. The Syria case remains highly fluid, and empirical developments may outpace the conclusions drawn here.

Finally, where European economic interests and the security of critical maritime routes are directly threatened the EU must be prepared to contribute to collective security arrangements, including through coordinated naval presence and defence partnerships with Gulf states that share an interest in open sea lanes. 

The EU is not absent from the Middle East. It is present but incoherent. Its leverage through energy demand, trade, and investment is substantial – but systematically squandered by bilateral fragmentation and institutional paralysis. Durable influence in the Gulf is built on respect, reciprocity, and reliability. Coherence is the precondition for influence. Institutional reform is the precondition for coherence.

References

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