The European Union and Kuwait held their fourth expert level Senior Officials’ Meeting in Brussels, on Monday 11 December. The meeting was an occasion to consolidate and further enhance bilateral cooperation and dialogue.

Based on the Cooperation Arrangements between the EEAS and Kuwait signed in July 2016 and drawing on new priorities, as set out in the Joint Communication on ‘A Strategic Partnership with the Gulf’, the meeting offered the opportunity for a broad exchange of views on several elements of the parties bilateral agenda and to identify new cooperation initiatives for the coming year.

The discussions was structured in three separate Working Groups on ‘Global Agenda’, ‘ Economic Diversification’ and ‘Security and Counter-Terrorism’, in which more than 50 participants from both sides were able to raise issues of common interest, such as trade and investment, climate change, green transition, humanitarian assistance, development cooperation, counterterrorism, cybersecurity, cooperation on mediation and conflict prevention, aiming at further deepening of cooperation and intensifying synergies in a constructive an forward looking manner.

The Senior Officials’ Meeting was opened by Ms Hélène Le Gal, Managing Director for Middle East in the European External Action Service and Assistant Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Ambassador Sadiq Marafi, on the Kuwaiti side. The next Senior Officials' Meeting will be held in Kuwait, in 2024.