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In today's edition: Cardiovascular health, EU nitrate rules, and Trump RX

Cette trêve provisoire intervient plus d'un mois après que les États-Unis et Israël ont lancé des attaques coordonnées contre l'Iran.

ELIAMEP is launching a new collection of Policy Papers titled The Iran reckoning: Essays on a war the West was not ready for on the war on Iran, aiming to deliver concise and rigorous analysis of a critical contemporary geopolitical crisis. The papers examine the conflict’s strategic, legal, and economic dimensions, while assessing its implications for regional stability and the international order. 

The first policy paper of this collection; titled  “The bill will come due: The short, medium and long-term consequences of the Iran war- From oil shock to strategic realignment” argues that while the immediate energy shock has captured global attention, the conflict is generating deeper, structural damage to global food security, energy geography, and the Western security architecture that will persist for decades.

The 2026 Iran War has triggered a structural erosion of the global order, beginning with the immediate suspension of maritime insurance in the Strait of Hormuz that disrupted 20% of global petroleum, one-fifth of LNG trade, and one-third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser shipments. While Brent crude’s peak at $126 per barrel dominated headlines, there is a critical “analytical gap” regarding an impending food security crisis in the Global South, where the loss of agricultural inputs will manifest as compromised harvests and potential regional recessions within 6-12 months. This conflict has fundamentally compromised the 50-year “energy-for-security” compact between the U.S. and Gulf states, leading regional monarchies to perceive Washington more as a source of unpredictability than as a protector, and to accelerate “multi-alignment” security strategies and partnerships with China, India, and Russia.

• Immediate economic and logistics destabilisation. The conflict triggered a collapse of the maritime insurance and logistics systems in the Persian Gulf. Brent crude peaked at $126 per barrel, and while the release of 400 million barrels from strategic reserves provided a temporary cushion, these are “one-use buffers”.
• The fertiliser-food crisis nexus. A critical analytical gap exists regarding the disruption of agricultural inputs. Because agricultural cycles are inflexible, the current disruption will manifest as compromised harvests in 4-6 months and acute food insecurity in 6-12 months. Policy responses must prioritise emergency financing and the creation of strategic fertiliser reserves to mitigate recessions.
• Strategic realignment in the Gulf. The war has fundamentally compromised the energy-for-security compact that governed US-Gulf relations. Consequently, Gulf monarchies are accelerating multi-alignment strategies to secure strategic predictability.
• Long-­term structural shifts. The conflict is driving a permanent recomposition of global energy geography. Additionally, the crisis has transformed decarbonisation from an environmental objective into a strategic imperative to eliminate dependency.
• Policy recommendations for Europe. It is imperative that the EU links reconstruction funding to strategic conditionality to ensure they do not finance a stabilisation effort shaped by external actors without securing meaningful influence over the resulting regional order.

Read here in pdf the Policy paper by Dr Andréas C. Hatzidiakos, Research Fellow, ELIAMEP; Co-director of OPEWI (Europe’s War Institute).

WITHIN DAYS OF THE CONFLICT’S OPENING PHASE, the Joint War Committee[1] designated the Persian Gulf a high-risk zone, effectively suspending standard marine insurance coverage for commercial vessels and triggering force majeure clauses across thousands of shipping contracts. Tanker operators declined to route through an uninsured conflict zone. Charter rates for available tonnage outside the Gulf spiked to record levels. The commodity flows transiting the Strait of Hormuz – approximately 20 percent of global petroleum consumption and one-fifth of global LNG trade[2], alongside one-third of the world’s traded fertilisers[3] – were disrupted within days, not weeks.

The energy market response generated the headlines. Brent crude reached a peak of $126 per barrel – a level not seen since the 2008 energy crisis – representing a near-50 percent increase from pre-conflict levels within the space of four weeks, carrying immediate political visibility. What received far less attention was the second category of cargo: the ammonium nitrate, urea, and phosphate shipments[4] that underpin agricultural supply chains from South Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa[5], and whose disruption operates on a timeline measured not in trading days but in growing seasons. Less visible still is a third category of consequence – one that will not appear in any commodity price index – the accelerating reconfiguration of Gulf security partnerships. When a protective power becomes a source of instability, the states that depend on it do not wait for the conflict to end before drawing conclusions.

This is the analytical gap this article addresses. The most visible consequences of the 2026 Iran war are severe because they are immediate, tangible and measurable by the average consumer. They are not the most structurally significant. The deeper damage is accumulating in sectors that do not generate equivalent political urgency, at a pace the standard instruments of crisis management are not calibrated to track. The full cost of this conflict will not be presented for months – in some dimensions, for years. When it is, the figure will substantially exceed current estimates.

The immediate shock: energy, markets, and the limits of strategic reserves

The energy market response to the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz was swift, severe, and entirely consistent with pre-conflict scenario modelling that had been available to governments for over a decade. Brent crude rose above $100 per barrel within days of the conflict’s opening phase. Gulf state oil production – representing approximately one-third of global supply – was immediately disrupted: not primarily through the physical destruction of extraction infrastructure, but through the rapid collapse of the insurance, logistics, and maritime crewing systems on which tanker operations depend. War-risk premiums rendered routine commercial voyages economically inviable within hours of the first engagements. The consequence was a de facto market-imposed embargo, operative before any formal blockade was declared.

The coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves – approximately 400 million barrels mobilised through American and International Energy Agency frameworks – provided a temporary price cushion and a degree of political cover for affected governments. The limits of this instrument, however, are structural and must be acknowledged clearly: the strategic reserve is a one-use buffer, not a solution. Its drawdown buys weeks, not months. The only genuine resolution to the supply disruption is physical – the reopening of the strait to commercial traffic – and that outcome remains, as of this writing, contingent on a political or military resolution that has yet to materialise.

The immediate shock, considered in isolation, remains within the range of policy management. The problem lies in what follows.

The financial consequences extend well beyond the energy sector. The risk premium now embedded in global asset pricing – the persistent upward pressure reflecting the possibility of further escalation – will not dissolve with a ceasefire announcement. It becomes structural. Institutional investors are repricing long-term infrastructure exposure across the Gulf region. Shipping companies are restructuring route networks and procurement chains. Insurance markets are recalibrating their political-risk models for all Gulf-adjacent maritime corridors. These adjustments, once institutionalised, are not easily reversed. The immediate shock, considered in isolation, remains within the range of policy management. The problem lies in what follows.

The propagation effect: food, fertiliser, and the forgotten supply chain

The Persian Gulf is not solely an oil corridor. This fact – well-documented in commodity trade literature and agricultural economics – has received insufficient attention in the strategic commentary surrounding this conflict.

Α disruption to transit that begins today translates into compromised harvests within four to six months, and into a measurable food price crisis in global commodity markets within six to twelve months.

Gulf states account for approximately half of globally traded urea exports and roughly 30 percent of globally traded ammonia exports. Collectively, approximately one-third of global seaborne fertiliser trade – spanning nitrogen, phosphate, and sulphur compounds – transits the Strait of Hormuz[6]. The agricultural supply chain operates on a timeline that admits no flexibility: fertilisers must be applied at defined intervals within the growing cycle. A disruption to transit that begins today translates into compromised harvests within four to six months, and into a measurable food price crisis in global commodity markets within six to twelve months. The conflict began within that window. The agricultural consequences are already in motion.

The differential impact across economies is stark and deeply inequitable. For energy-exporting nations – the United States, Australia, Norway, Canada – the war represents a significant but manageable cost increase. For energy-importing emerging economies, the compounding effect of elevated energy prices and fertiliser scarcity constitutes a structural crisis. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and large portions of Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia face the simultaneous deterioration of energy affordability, agricultural input availability, and rising food prices[7]. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly exposed: over 90 percent of the fertilisers used across the region are imported, and maise – the primary staple crop across much of the continent – is acutely dependent on nitrogen inputs now unavailable at predictable cost. For households already operating near subsistence margins, this convergence does not represent a policy challenge. It represents acute food insecurity. At the macroeconomic level, several of these economies face the conditions for recession.

By that point, the window for preventive action will have closed.

The markets and governments of developed economies are currently pricing in an energy shock. They have not yet adequately priced in a food shock. That misjudgement carries significant policy risk. The necessary responses – emergency agricultural financing for the most exposed economies, alternative supply routing for nitrogenous fertilisers, and the development of strategic fertiliser reserve mechanisms comparable to existing energy reserves – require lead times that the political calendar is not currently accommodating. The harvest data, when it arrives in autumn 2026, will confirm what the supply chain data already indicates. By that point, the window for preventive action will have closed.

The reshaping of Gulf security architecture

A consequential conversation is underway in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait, Muscat and Manama. It concerns whether the security architecture that has governed the Gulf for five decades continues to serve the interests of the states it was designed to protect. This conversation deserves more serious analytical attention than it has received.

The Gulf states did not choose this war. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman are hosting American Western military assets, providing forward logistical infrastructure, and absorbing Iranian retaliatory strikes – against their desalination facilities, their port infrastructure, and the energy corridors their national economies depend upon – as a direct consequence of a decision taken in Washington without their prior consultation. The implicit architecture underpinning the US-Gulf relationship has, for five decades, rested on a mutual compact: Gulf states provided the United States with territorial access and preferential energy arrangements; in return, they received security guarantees against external aggression, principally from Iran. That compact was institutionalised through a dense basing architecture: Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar – CENTCOM’s forward headquarters, housing approximately 10,000 troops and the largest American installation in the Middle East – the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE[8].

The United States is not the only Western power to secure a military foothold in the region – though the nature of those arrangements differs. France and the United Kingdom pursued explicitly contractual defence partnerships, negotiated as bilateral agreements rather than implicit strategic compacts. France has maintained a permanent base in Abu Dhabi (Camp de la Paix) since 2009, its first permanent overseas military installation in five decades, established under a formal Defence Cooperation Agreement with the UAE[9]. The United Kingdom formalised its regional presence through the 2019 UK-Oman Joint Defence Agreement, operating a Joint Logistics Support Base at Duqm – deliberately positioned outside the Strait of Hormuz – alongside long-standing training arrangements across the Gulf[10]. These European partnerships were built on treaty frameworks with defined mutual obligations, not on the implicit energy-for-security logic that has characterised the American relationship with the Gulf. That distinction now carries considerable weight. The implicit American compact functioned as long as the United States was perceived by its partners as a net provider of stability – a protective power whose presence reduced regional risk. That perception has been fundamentally altered by the 2026 Iran War. Washington is no longer seen, from Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, primarily as a guarantor. It is seen as a variable – a source of unpredictability whose strategic decisions can destabilise the region as readily as they can protect it.

The gap between the stated American commitment to Gulf stability and the observable consequences of American strategic decisions is now too large to paper over.

This contradiction has not appeared suddenly. Its roots are traceable across several decades of American Middle East policy. What the 2026 conflict has done is render it impossible to manage through the customary instruments of alliance diplomacy – reassurance language, bilateral security memoranda, arms sales, and summit-level consultations. The gap between the stated American commitment to Gulf stability and the observable consequences of American strategic decisions is now too large to paper over.

When the entity responsible for managing a principal risk becomes itself a primary source of that risk, rational actors diversify.

The logic that follows is not ideological. It is actuarial. When the entity responsible for managing a principal risk becomes itself a primary source of that risk, rational actors diversify. They do not necessarily abandon the relationship – the American security architecture remains too deeply embedded, and the alternatives too immature, for a clean break[11]. But they hedge, they build redundancy, and they cultivate alternatives. This is precisely what the Gulf monarchies have been doing, with increasing deliberateness, for the better part of a decade.

The 2023 Saudi-Iran normalisation agreement brokered by Beijing was not a rupture with Washington nor a diplomatic anomaly. It was a deliberate signal from Riyadh that the kingdom was prepared to pursue strategic relationships outside the framework of the American alliance architecture when doing so served its interests. It is a premium paid on a new insurance policy. The acceleration of defence partnerships with France, the United Kingdom, India, and China is not anti-American sentiment. It is portfolio management. Beijing does not impose governance conditions on its partners. It does not threaten sovereign wealth funds with secondary sanctions. It does not initiate regional military campaigns without prior consultation with affected neighbouring states. From the perspective of Gulf leadership calculating long-term regime and state security, Chinese partnership offers an attribute that American partnership has demonstrably ceased to provide: strategic predictability. China’s strategic objective is not to replace the United States as security guarantor – a role for which it currently lacks the regional military infrastructure – but to entrench itself as an indispensable defence-industrial partner, driving Gulf domestic manufacturing capacity and technology transfer while reducing Western leverage.

The architecture of multi-alignment – systematic hedging across major power relationships – was already a feature of Gulf strategic practice before this conflict. It will accelerate significantly in its aftermath.

Russia maintains active military and commercial relationships across the region. India, as the world’s most populous state and a significant energy importer with deep historical ties to Gulf economies, represents a partnership of growing importance to Gulf diversification strategies[12]. India has pursued a deliberate strategy of defence deepening with Gulf states, driven by its own energy dependency and its growing strategic competition with China[13]. At the same time, Pakistan is also positioning itself, by backing Saudi Arabia through a mutual defence cooperation agreement signed in September 2025, featuring a NATO-like article 5 collective defence clause. Turkey, formally a NATO member, has pursued its own Gulf relationships with a degree of strategic independence that pre-existing alliance frameworks have proven unable to constrain. The architecture of multi-alignment – systematic hedging across major power relationships – was already a feature of Gulf strategic practice before this conflict. It will accelerate significantly in its aftermath.

Water security has emerged as an underestimated strategic variable. The desalination facilities of the Arabian Peninsula supply the majority of drinking water for the populations of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman[14]. These installations are coastal, energy-intensive, and – as demonstrated in the current conflict – targetable by Iranian-affiliated forces operating with conventional munitions and drone systems. For states in which water supply depends overwhelmingly on desalination, the military targeting of this infrastructure is not a peripheral concern. It represents a direct threat to population welfare and, consequently, to state stability. The exposure of this vulnerability under the conditions of the American security umbrella will not be readily forgotten.

The Hormuz dilemma facing Gulf governments is structurally acute. Their dependence on the strait – for oil export revenues, for food imports, for the full range of consumer and industrial goods their economies require – is as great as that of any state on earth. And yet the political constraints operating on Gulf governments prevent any public acknowledgement of this dependency in the context of the current conflict, for fear of being perceived as taking a position against Washington or in favour of Tehran. Gulf states are, in effect, trapped in a conflict they did not initiate, whose costs they are absorbing, and whose resolution they cannot publicly advocate. Strategic entrapment of this kind, sustained over time, generates deep institutional resentment. And institutional resentment, in the strategic context, becomes the precondition for realignment.

The United States may succeed in its military objectives against Iran. If that outcome is achieved while permanently eroding the confidence of Gulf partner states in American reliability as a security provider, the strategic ledger will record a tactical success and a generational loss.

The long-term recomposition: energy routes, the transition, and American credibility

The structural consequences of the Hormuz disruption extend well beyond the Gulf region and will prove resistant to reversal once the underlying investment decisions have been made.

Asian energy consumers – China, India, Japan, and South Korea, which collectively absorb over 80 percent of the crude oil and LNG transiting the strait – are not adopting a passive posture while awaiting the strait’s reopening. China is accelerating overland pipeline imports from Russia and Central Asia, and has formally incorporated the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline through Mongolia into its 2026–2030 strategic development plan[15]. India’s four major state energy companies – Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum, and GAIL – are in active negotiations with Angola’s Sonangol for alternative LPG and LNG supply, while simultaneously deepening procurement agreements with Australian producers[16], whose delivery times to Indian ports are less than a third of those from the United States. Japan and South Korea signed a bilateral LNG cooperation and supply-chain resilience pact in March 2026, coordinating alternative sourcing and reducing single-supplier exposure, while Japan accelerates nuclear restarts as a structural hedge[17]. These are not emergency contingency measures. They are capital investment decisions with twenty-year operational horizons. Once the physical infrastructure is built and the long-term supply contracts executed, the strategic geography of global energy does not revert to its prior configuration simply because a ceasefire has been reached in the Persian Gulf.

The position of the United States in this dynamic is characterised by a sharp and consequential divergence between short-term commercial gain and long-term strategic cost.

The position of the United States in this dynamic is characterised by a sharp and consequential divergence between short-term commercial gain and long-term strategic cost. As the world’s largest oil and gas producer, the United States benefits commercially from elevated crude prices driven by Gulf supply disruption. American shale exports are reaching markets at a significant premium. In the near term, Washington is in the position of a major supplier monetising a crisis whose conditions it helped to create. For some constituencies within the current administration, this represents an acceptable or even desirable strategic outcome.

The longer-term calculation, however, runs in the opposite direction. The credibility of American maritime leadership – the foundational proposition that has underpinned the international trading order since 1945 – rests on the premise that the United States is both willing and able to maintain freedom of navigation in international waterways. The 2026 Hormuz crisis has placed that premise under serious strain. Not because of any demonstrated deficiency in American naval capability, but because the United States is now perceived, across a significant portion of the international community, as an actor capable of precipitating the maritime crisis it formally claims to prevent. This perception – once established in the institutional memory of governments, port authorities, shipping companies, and commodity markets – is not readily reversed by subsequent reassurances.

The energy transition is likely to emerge as one of the more durable unintended structural consequences of this conflict.

The energy transition is likely to emerge as one of the more durable unintended structural consequences of this conflict. European and Asian policymakers have, for over a decade, framed the decarbonisation agenda in predominantly environmental and climate terms. The political coalitions required to sustain that argument have been difficult to construct and prone to erosion under short-term economic pressure. The 2026 Hormuz disruption introduces a new and politically far more powerful argument into the policy calculus: dependency on Gulf hydrocarbons is a strategic liability, not merely an environmental one. The political consensus required to accelerate investment in renewable capacity, nuclear energy, grid storage, and demand-side efficiency – a consensus that has been frustratingly incomplete in the face of energy sector lobbying and short-term industrial interests – is now available in a form that no previous policy argument had been able to generate.

What Europe must do – and is not doing

Europe will not be insulated from the consequences of this conflict by the fact of its non-participation. The migration flows, energy market repricing, nuclear proliferation risk, regional fragmentation, and hybrid security threats that this war is generating do not terminate at the EU’s external borders. They will manifest in European capitals regardless of the decisions, or failures of decision, made in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris.

The G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting of 26-27 March 2026 produced language, from several European participants, invoking the concept of a “new world order”. The impulse behind this formulation is understandable – the scale of the strategic disruption underway does carry the character of rupture. The formulation is, however, analytically imprecise in ways that have policy consequences. The foundational architecture established in 1945 – the United Nations Charter, the prohibition on aggressive war as an instrument of state policy, the principle that international peace constitutes a common good subject to collective security (not defence) – has not been formally abrogated. What has changed is something more specific: the recognition, now no longer deniable, that while the strategic tempo in international affairs continues to be set by Washington, Washington’s tempo is no longer reliably aligned with European interests, strategic priorities, or conceptions of international order.

Europe must now make choices it has postponed for a generation.

This is not, in fact, a new world. It is the world as it has been for a considerable period – one that European institutions and governments have consistently chosen not to engage with in its full complexity, because doing so would have required politically costly decisions about defence investment, strategic industrial policy, and the development of a European strategic autonomy and capacity. What this conflict has done is eliminate the space for continued deferral. The comfort of strategic ambiguity is no longer available. Europe must now make choices it has postponed for a generation.

The post-conflict reconstruction phase will represent the point at which European leverage is most concentrated and most actionable.

The post-conflict reconstruction phase will represent the point at which European leverage is most concentrated and most actionable. The economic reconstruction of a post-conflict Iran – or the stabilisation of a fragmenting one – will require financial frameworks, governance architecture, sanctions relief mechanisms, and diplomatic recognition processes that only the European Union, with its combination of market scale, institutional capacity and, above all, normative credibility, can provide at the necessary level. That leverage is real. It is also conditional: it exists only to the extent that Europe arrives at the negotiating table with a coherent, unified position, a defined set of political conditions, and both the institutional and political will to link its reconstruction contribution to outcomes that serve European strategic interests.

What European institutions cannot afford is to finance, yet again, stabilisation efforts shaped by other actors’ strategic objectives without securing meaningful influence over the political outcomes those efforts are intended to produce. 

What European institutions cannot afford – and what precedent from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya suggests remains the default – is to finance, yet again, stabilisation efforts shaped by other actors’ strategic objectives without securing meaningful influence over the political outcomes those efforts are intended to produce. The post-conflict order of the broader Middle East and Gulf region will be the defining strategic question of the next decade. The decisions made in the coming eighteen months regarding sanctions architecture, nuclear verification, Gulf security guarantees, and the political future of Iran will shape regional order for a generation – pending resolution of the conflict. If European engagement in that process is limited to the provision of reconstruction funding without strategic conditionality, the cost will be borne by European citizens for years without a commensurate return in security, stability, or influence.

[1] The Joint War Committee (JWC) is a body of senior underwriters from Lloyd’s of London and the International Underwriting Association (IUA) that assesses maritime conflict risk globally. It publishes periodically updated “Listed Areas” – zones requiring advance notification to insurers and attracting substantially elevated war-risk premiums, often negotiated on a single-voyage basis. Its designations carry no regulatory authority but function in practice as the industry standard: when the JWC lists a zone, standard hull war-risk coverage for transiting vessels is effectively suspended, with immediate systemic consequences for commercial shipping decisions. In March 2026, the Committee extended its Listed Areas to cover the Persian Gulf and Gulf states hosting US military assets, triggering the cascade of insurance and logistics disruptions described in this article.

[2] US Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Amid Regional Conflict, the Strait of Hormuz Remains Critical Oil Chokepoint”, Today in Energy, 16/06/2025.

[3] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “The Other Global Crisis Stemming from the Strait of Hormuz’s Blockage”, Emissary, 12/03/2026.

[4] The three primary fertiliser categories transiting Hormuz are nitrogenous fertilisers (urea and ammonium nitrate, derived from Gulf-produced ammonia), and phosphate-based fertilisers. Gulf states collectively account for 43-49 percent of global seaborne urea exports, approximately 25-30 percent of globally traded ammonia, and a significant share of phosphate exports. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are disproportionately exposed: India sources over 40 percent of its urea and the majority of its ammonia imports from the region, while Sub-Saharan Africa – where fertiliser application rates are already among the world’s lowest – depends on Gulf states for approximately 25-35 percent of total fertiliser supply.

[5] See CSIS, “Chokepoint: How the War with Iran Threatens Global Food Security”, 10/03/2026.

[6] See above: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “The Other Global Crisis Stemming from the Strait of Hormuz’s Blockage”, Emissary, 12/03/2026.

[7] Reuters, “Which Economies Will Hurt Most from Iran War?”, 20/03/2026.

[8] Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S. Forces in the Middle East: Mapping the Military Presence”,  23/06/2025.

[9] The defence relationship between France and the United Arab Emirates is anchored in a bilateral Defence Cooperation Agreement signed on 18 January 1995 after two decades of close political and military ties. Under that agreement, France committed to the UAE’s defence in the event of external aggression, and the UAE granted France permanent military basing rights. The arrangement was formalised into a permanent military installation – Camp de la Paix, Abu Dhabi – inaugurated by President Sarkozy in May 2009. The base hosts between approximately 500 to 700 French Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel and is positioned to face the Strait of Hormuz directly, giving France a permanent operational footprint at the Gulf’s most strategically sensitive point. The partnership encompasses regular joint exercises, defence industrial cooperation – including the landmark 2021 order for 80 Rafale fighter jets, the largest single French arms export in history – and a mutual assistance clause that, in principle, obligates France to respond to a military attack on the UAE – which it did at the highest of the Hormuz crisis.

[10] The United Kingdom’s defence relationship with Oman is among the longest-standing bilateral security partnerships in the Gulf, rooted in historical ties predating Omani independence. It was substantially updated and formalised through the Joint Defence Agreement (JDA) signed in Muscat on 21 February 2019 by UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Omani Minister for Defence Affairs Badr Bin Saud, and ratified by Royal Decree 42/2019. The JDA provides the UK with long-term access to the Duqm Port Joint Logistics Support Base – a deep-water facility deliberately located south of the Strait of Hormuz, outside the primary Iranian threat envelope – and to the Omani-British Joint Training Area (OBJTA) near Duqm, enabling large-scale combined-arms exercises, armoured manoeuvres, and integrated air support training. In exchange, the UK committed £3 billion over ten years to Gulf regional security. A further annex agreement was concluded in 2023, refining access arrangements and implementation modalities. Unlike the US basing framework – which rests on an implicit energy-for-security compact – the UK-Oman arrangement is a formally ratified treaty with defined mutual obligations, placing it on a qualitatively different legal and political footing.

[11] China’s defence relationship with the Gulf has evolved from arms sales into a comprehensive strategic architecture. Saudi Arabia and the UAE both signed Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreements with Beijing – the UAE in 2018, Saudi Arabia in December 2022 during Xi Jinping’s state visit to Riyadh.

[12] The foundational instrument is the UAE-India Defence Cooperation Agreement (2003), which established frameworks for military training, naval cooperation, and maritime pollution control. That agreement was substantially upgraded on 19 January 2026, when UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s state visit to New Delhi produced a bilateral Strategic Defence Partnership letter of intent, a $3 billion Indian arms procurement package, and a ten-year LNG supply contract between ADNOC Gas and Hindustan Petroleum.

[13] The rivalry between IMEC – the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, championed by the United States and its Western partners – and BRI – China’s Belt and Road Initiative, developed alongside Russia, Pakistan, and Iran – reflects a broader struggle to shape the arteries of global trade and influence. The current military conflict involving Iran risks directly threatening the strategic calculus underpinning both projects, as it disrupts Gulf energy flows and forces regional states to recalibrate their alignments. For India, such instability confirms the necessity to anchor Gulf partners – particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia – within the IMEC framework, deepening New Delhi’s strategic and economic footprint in a region where China has also made significant inroads. Beijing, conversely, stands to lose a key BRI node and a critical energy supplier, compelling it to intensify its courtship of Gulf monarchies to preserve its supply chain resilience. As indicated by Zaki Laïdi and Yves Tiberghien in their article “Hedgers : les nouveaux non-alignés”, Le Grand Continent, 30/03/2026, over the past three decades, virtually eight countries studied (India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Africa, and Qatar) have reduced their trade dependence on the United States. All eight countries have massively expanded their trade ties with China, which is now the primary source of imports for six of them (accounting for between 17% and 39% depending on the country). This commercial shift illustrates the decline of American economic centrality to the benefit of Beijing across the Global South, a trend that the Trump administration’s trade war risks amplifying even further. The Iran war thus risks transforming the Gulf into a theatre of intensified Sino-Indian competition, where infrastructure investment, energy diplomacy, and security partnerships become instruments of geopolitical positioning.

[14] Gulf states supply over 90 percent of drinking water through desalination for Kuwait and Bahrain, 86 percent for Oman, 70 percent for Saudi Arabia, and over 99 percent of Qatar’s drinking water. See Arab Center Washington DC, “The Costs and Benefits of Water Desalination in the Gulf”, 12/04/2023.

[15] See Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, “Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz: Implications for China’s Energy Security”, Michal Meidan, March 2026. See also The Diplomat, “How the Iran War Could Boost Russia’s Role in Asia’s Energy Future”, 17/03/2026.

[16] See for example Business Today (India), “Why India Will Look at Australia, Russia over US for LNG”, 19/03/2026.

[17] See Energy Intelligence, “Gulf Crisis Exposes Japan, South Korea’s Transition Strategies”, 25/03/2026

Les cadres du parti de l’ancien président Joseph Kabila, opposés au pouvoir du chef de l’Etat Félix Tshisekedi, sont particulièrement visés. Le Conseil national de la cyberdéfense est accusé de servir de police politique.

'It creates a much-needed chance to tone down threats, stop missiles, restart shipping, and create space for diplomacy'

In today's edition: European Central Bank, critical raw materials, energy transition

In today's edition: CSAM legal limbo, Mistral AI levy push, space agency revamp

Les Conservateurs et Réformistes européens « partent à la chasse » pour attirer plus de membres que les Patriotes

The post Orbán sous pression à Bruxelles comme à Budapest appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Seit fast drei Jahren bekämpfen sich die sudanesische Armee (SAF) und die Rapid Support Forces (RSF) unnachgiebig. Dabei greifen beide Seiten auch die Zivilbevölkerung an, zerstören die Infrastruktur und schwächen das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement – unterstützt durch externe Akteure. Vor diesem Hintergrund kommt der internationalen Sudankonferenz in Berlin eine besondere Bedeutung zu. 

Ziele und Erwartungen managen

Anlässlich des dritten Jahrestags des Konfliktbeginns am 15. April hat die Bundesregierung zusammen mit Frankreich, Großbritannien, den USA, der Europäischen Union (EU) und der Afrikanischen Union (AU) zu einer internationalen Sudankonferenz eingeladen. Außenminister:innen relevanter Länder sowie Vertreter:innen der Vereinten Nationen, humanitären Organisationen und der sudanesischen Zivilgesellschaft werden in Berlin erwartet. 

Gleichzeitig gilt: Die Konferenz ist keine Friedenskonferenz. Niemand sollte seine Erwartungen zu hoch schrauben. Selbst eine humanitäre Waffenruhe, die die USA mit ihren Partnern Ägypten, Saudi-Arabien und den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten vermitteln wollen, ist derzeit nicht in Sicht. Es wäre bereits ein gewisser Fortschritt, wenn sich die sudanesischen Vertreter:innen auf eine Erklärung zur Deeskalation des Konflikts einigen könnten. Ein gemeinsames Communiqué der Minister:innen wird angesichts der Uneinigkeit beim letzten Mal in London wahrscheinlich nicht zustande kommen.

Zivile Akteure ins Zentrum rücken

Trotz ihrer begrenzten Möglichkeiten bietet die internationale Sudankonferenz in Berlin die Chance für einen längst überfälligen Perspektivwechsel: weg von den Kriegsparteien, hin zu denen, die bereits heute an gesellschaftlichem und politischem Frieden arbeiten.

Natürlich müssen die SAF und die RSF selbst die Waffen zum Schweigen bringen. Die militärischen Akteure allein werden aber noch nicht einmal ein dauerhaftes Ende bewaffneter Gewalt garantieren können. Das Modell einer Machtteilung würde bestenfalls eine erneute fragile zivil-militärische Übergangsregierung hervorbringen. Kämpfe innerhalb der bewaffneten Koalitionen wären angesichts divergierender Interessen wahrscheinlich; ein erneutes Aufflammen der Gewalt wäre nur eine Frage der Zeit. Südsudan ist bereits einen vergleichbaren Weg gegangen: Dort ist bewaffnete Gewalt Teil des politischen Systems geworden.

Stattdessen braucht Sudan eine neue politische Ordnung, die von Zivilist:innen bestimmt wird. Diese zu entwickeln, wird Zeit benötigen, aber den notwendigen Diskussionsrahmen dafür zu schaffen, ist auch während des laufenden Kriegs möglich. Genau das ist das Ziel des Quintetts aus fünf internationalen Organisationen - AU, EU, Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Vereinte Nationen und Arabische Liga -, das sich Anfang des Jahres zusammengeschlossen hat. Das Quintett führt Konsultationen mit zahlreichen zivilen und politischen Gruppen Sudans durch. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Ansätzen zeigt sich dabei derzeit eine größere Geschlossenheit unter den beteiligten Organisationen sowie ein abgestimmtes Prozessdesign. Unterschiedliche politische Blöcke mit Nähe zu den Konfliktparteien und unabhängige zivile Akteure sollen sich auf ein sudanesisches Steuerungsgremium einigen, das Agenda und Kriterien eines politischen Prozesses festlegt. 

Die Konferenz sollte sich hinter diesen Prozess stellen. Die Teilnehmenden sollten sich verpflichten, keine parallelen Initiativen zu organisieren und bestehende Projekte mit zivilen Akteuren - insbesondere aus Großbritannien, Norwegen, Kanada und der Schweiz - in den Dienst dieses Prozesses zu stellen. 

Das zivile Element auf der Konferenz in Berlin, bei dem 40 sudanesische Vertreter:innen zusammenkommen sollen, kann ein wichtiger Schritt hin zu einer gemeinsamen Plattform sein und den internationalen Teilnehmenden eigene Botschaften mitgeben.

Beim humanitären Element der Konferenz sollten einerseits dringend benötigte Finanzmittel eingesammelt werden. Zum anderen sollte die Eigenverantwortung, der Schutz und die Finanzierung von gegenseitigen Hilfsnetzwerken wie den Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) gestärkt werden. Sie erreichen auch Regionen, in denen internationale Hilfsorganisationen nicht arbeiten können, und stärken mit ihrer Arbeit den sozialen Zusammenhalt.

Diese zivilen Ansätze könnten dazu beitragen, die Bedingungen für ein Ende des Krieges wahrscheinlicher zu machen.

Mark Rutte, Guido Crosetto, EIB, France-Israel

Le vice-président américain J.D. Vance, en visite à Budapest, a vanté, mardi 7 avril, les mérites du Premier ministre hongrois Viktor Orban face à ce qu'il a dénoncé comme des interférences de Bruxelles. Nous sommes à quelques jours des élections législatives pour lesquelles le dirigeant nationaliste semble en mauvaise posture.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Les interrogations se multiplient sur les instigateurs du projet et son rôle potentiel à l'approche des élections législatives en Pologne

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In today's edition: Pesticides, Greek minister, CMO

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Ce mercredi 8 avril 2026, la presse congolaise focalise son attention sur l’arrivée et la prise de fonctions de James Swan à la tête de la MONUSCO. Dans un contexte sécuritaire tendu dans l’Est de la RDC, les médias décryptent les défis majeurs qui attendent le successeur de Bintou Keita.

« James Swan face à l’équation congolaise », titre à sa une Le Potentiel.