Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) | History, Member Countries, Purpose, & Summits (2024)

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), political and economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. The GCC was established in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May 1981. The purpose of the GCC is to achieve unity among its members based on their common objectives and their similar political and cultural identities, which are rooted in Arab and Islamic cultures. Presidency of the council rotates annually.

Arguably the most important article of the GCC charter is Article 4, which states that the alliance was formed to strengthen relations among its member countries and to promote cooperation among the countries’ citizens. The GCC also has a defense planning council that coordinates military cooperation between member countries. The highest decision-making entity of the GCC is the Supreme Council, which meets on an annual basis and consists of GCC heads of state. Decisions of the Supreme Council are adopted by unanimous approval. The Ministerial Council, made up of foreign ministers or other government officials, meets every three months to implement the decisions of the Supreme Council and to propose new policy. The administrative arm of the alliance is the office of the Secretariat-General, which monitors policy implementation and arranges meetings.

GCC agreements typically focus on either security or economic coordination. In terms of security coordination, policies have included the creation of the Peninsula Shield Force in 1984, a joint military venture based in Saudi Arabia, and the signing of an intelligence-sharing pact in 2004. The first significant deployment of the Peninsula Shield Force was in 2011 in Bahrain to guard government infrastructure against an uprising there during the Arab Spring protests. Economic coordination included attempts at economic union, though integrative agreements were often lacklustre in comparison with policy coordination. An agreement to launch a single regional currency similar to the euro by 2010 saw little movement apart from the establishment of a monetary council in 2009. Coordination in tax policy proved fruitful, however: a customs union was implemented in 2015, and the member states began rolling out a value-added tax of 5 percent in 2018. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have tended to lead policy coordination. They were the first countries to send troops to Bahrain in 2011 and the first countries to levy the value-added tax.

While membership of the GCC remained consistent throughout its first several decades, changes in regional relationships sometimes led to speculation on changes in membership. Expansion appeared possible when the interests of Gulf countries aligned with those of other Arab states. Jordan and Morocco, two other Arab monarchies, were invited to join the GCC in 2011, in the midst of the Arab Spring uprisings. Morocco declined, while Jordan’s application remained delayed because of internal GCC disagreements. Conflicting interests at times led to rifts. Egypt and fellow GCC members Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain instated a blockade against Qatar in 2017. In December 2018 Qatar’s emir skipped the GCC’s annual summit and sent an envoy instead, though he sent his prime minister in 2019 as tensions seemed to thaw. The blockade was lifted during the following annual summit, held in January 2021, with Qatar’s emir in attendance.