The UAE and the EU have started negotiations for a Strategic Partnership Agreement to deepen ties between the Arab world’s second-largest economy and the European bloc.
Through the agreement, they aim to deepen co-operation in areas including energy, green and digital transition and artificial intelligence, according to leading officials from the UAE and the EU.
Research and innovation, connectivity, security, humanitarian co-ordination, education and people-to-people exchanges will also be part of the new co-operation agenda.
The announcement follows negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (Cepa) between the UAE and the EU which began earlier this year.
“This year marks an important inflection point,” said Lana Nusseibeh, Minister of State and Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the EU, on Thursday at a Ministry of Foreign Affairs event in Abu Dhabi.
“The Cepa talks are advancing rapidly, supported by a strong foundation of complementary economic interests,” she said. This is increasing trade flows and deepening business-to-business collaboration, she added.
Ms Nusseibeh said the Cepa talks and the initiation of the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) “both signal a joint commitment to elevate our relationship to a new and more ambitious level”.
The UAE launched the Cepa programme in 2021 to reduce tariffs and remove trade bottlenecks with select countries through simpler customs procedures and rules. The agreements are also expected to boost bilateral investment in priority areas. A deal with the EU would be the largest since the UAE signed a Cepa with India – its first ever – in February 2022.
The Cepa programme helped the UAE hit record non-oil trade in 2024 of $816.7 billion, marking a 14.6 per cent annual increase. The country seeks to increase its foreign trade to Dh4 trillion ($1.1 trillion) by 2031.
The 31 Cepa agreements the UAE has signed so far, demonstrate the “transformative effect” these frameworks could have on economies, Ms Nusseibeh said.
The scope for impact following the agreement with the EU is “even greater”, she said.
“We are already the EU’s largest export destination and investment partner in the Middle East and North Africa. The EU is, in turn, the UAE’s leading investment partner and second-largest trading partner globally,” she added.
The total non-oil trade between the EU and the UAE reached $67.6 billion in 2024, according to official data.
The SPA and the recently launched Pact for the Mediterranean will open new avenues of co-operation “on wide-ranging areas and projects across the Middle East and North Africa in view of addressing shared challenges and seizing opportunities”, Dubravka Suica, EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean, said.
The Pact for the Mediterranean, launched by the EU in November, is a strategic initiative to deepen co-operation with Southern Mediterranean countries in different areas including in clean energy and digital economy.
Trade and investment to jump
Lucie Berger, EU Ambassador to the UAE, expects trade and investment between the 27-member economic bloc and the Emirates to increase as talks progress to conclude new deals.
“The Strategic Partnership Agreement is actually a more comprehensive framework for the bilateral relationship,” Ms Berger told The National on the sidelines of Abu Dhabi Finance week.
The SPA provides institutional framework for the relationship, and it expands the areas of co-operation with concrete initiatives, she said.
The Cepa agreement is likely to be concluded before SPA, with the fourth rounds of talks concluding this week in Brussels, she added.
Annual investment between the two blocs has reached approximately €328 billion ($384 billion), according to Ms Berger.
The UAE is strengthening investment ties with its European partners. Earlier this year, it signed an agreement worth $1 billion with Italy and Albania to build a subsea interconnector for exporting renewable energy across the Adriatic.
Under the deal, renewable energy produced in Albania will be exported to Italy through an undersea cable, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi in January.