I would like to welcome you, and your delegations, to Brussels for this first-ever EU-GCC summit. This summit opens a new — and I hope more ambitious — chapter in our cooperation. I hope this summit will help us to see more eye to eye on many of our shared challenges and that this will be the first of many meetings between our regions at leaders’ level. It is an honour to co-chair this Summit with you, Your Highness Sheikh Tamim, the Emir of Qatar. Thank you for your personal commitment. With this summit, we send a powerful message to our citizens and to the world: the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are ready to build a Strategic Partnership fit for the 21st century. We are ready to work together to tackle global challenges. We want more stability, more security, more prosperity and more respect for international law. I recently met with all of you to prepare this summit and we agreed that it should send a message of unity and a message of hope. We share a common goal – to promote growth and to generate more prosperity for our citizens. We can do this through sustainable investment and trade, and by working together on the two biggest transitions of our time: the digital and artificial intelligence revolution, and the green transformation of our economies. We are aware of the importance of better connecting our regions, our economies and our people. We share a common responsibility to protect the rules-based international order and the UN Charter. As regional organisations, we also have a key role to play in conflict resolution, addressing climate change, strengthening multilateralism and human rights. We all know that the current geopolitical context is extremely difficult and requires a lot of courage and clarity. I am convinced that we, in Europe and the Gulf, share a genuine wish to work much more together and to build bridges. Together, we can do more to promote stability, progress and solidarity in our regions and across the world. Today global stability is once again under threat as a result of the dramatic situation in the Middle East, Russia’s war against Ukraine and the tragic situation in Sudan. These crises have caused enormous human suffering, so we must act more decisively and, again, change the course of history. The future of our two regions is strongly connected. Today, we will discuss what we can do to build a positive agenda for the future that leads to more tangible benefits for our citizens and develops a roadmap for our future cooperation. Finally, I would like to warmly thank the negotiating teams on both sides for their tireless work on the joint statement. I look forward to a successful summit. | 
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