ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses why the European Union (EU) should look to the neighbours of its own neighbours in the Mediterranean and Middle East in the context of its European neighbourhood policy (ENP), sustaining the argument that many political, strategic and socioeconomic characteristics of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran are relevant to and may determine the future of the EU's relations with its southern neighbourhood. It examines the state of play of European relations with the Arabian Peninsula and focuses on the EU's relations with Iraq and Iran, before drawing some tentative conclusions. A geopolitical rethinking of EU policies in its neighbouring Mediterranean and the Middle Eastern region and in its ensuing relations with the Gulf thus seems necessary. The European presence in the Gulf dates back to the years of the British Empire, which had developed in the Peninsula a transit region for the imperial trading routes of its East India Company.
