The July 2022 leaders’ meeting took good steps on energy and food security, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia can help take the I2U2 to the next level when it comes to regional security.
After achieving respectable growth in 2021, the GCC member states now face the risk of monetary (over) tightening due to the need to follow the U.S Federal Reserve’s interest rate adjustments. These increases are not warranted, however, as the GCC economies currently face relatively moderate inflation. Instead, they should use the available fiscal space to mitigate the negative fallout of monetary tightening and make greater use of PPPs for future infrastructure development.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
On Apr. 26, Egyptian President Sisi launched a call for political dialogue with all opposition parties except for the Muslim Brotherhood. Many opponents remain skeptical of the government’s recent change of heart. But some regime opponents have started being released from prison, and state media has again begun allowing critics of Sisi back on the air.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s recent, six-day European tour, which took him to Germany, Serbia, and France, aimed to boost his image and status as a central player on the world stage despite widespread criticism of his regime’s human rights record.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
The emergence of Egypt as an Eastern Mediterranean energy hub resulted from a culmination of years of deliberate efforts. Increasingly, Egypt will be able to re-export Israeli natural gas or convert it into blue hydrogen, generate green electricity for export, or utilize its growing wind and solar power capacity to produce green hydrogen.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Nathenael Gemechu moderates a conversation with Michael Woldemariam and Guled Ahmed on Ethiopia in the first installment of a two-part series on the Horn of Africa. Woldemariam and Ahmed discuss the ongoing Tigrayan conflict that includes Ethiopia and Eritrea and the influence of external players.
Asia is undergoing a world-historical geopolitical transformation. The rise of the Indo-Pacific as a coherent geoeconomic and geopolitical system coincides with the rise of the “Indo-Abrahamic,” an emerging transregional order connecting India to West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. Until now, the geographic vastness of Asia and the legacy of “divide-and-conquer” colonialism have kept the continent politically and economically fragmented. By reshaping their bilateral relations, Cairo and New Delhi can seize the opportunity to link the Indo-Abrahamic with the Indo-Pacific, thus realizing this envisioned West Asian system.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The Dorra Gas Field, located in shallow waters offshore in the northern Arabian Gulf, lies at the junction of competing territorial claims by Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. With the growing gas demand in these countries, any production will be absorbed into the domestic network and the impact of production on the global gas and LNG market will be insignificant. However, the development of the field, if it occurs, may serve as a bellwether for regional relations.
Making the most of Iran’s reserves will require it to develop shared fields like Dorra/Arash, a gas field located offshore in the northern Gulf, where Iran must vie with competing claims from neighboring Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In the past, Iran has often neglected its joint gas fields as a result of sanctions and focused instead on meeting its rapidly growing domestic needs through exploiting non-shared fields, but the country says this must change going forward.