[bert]

I would like to see a contrast in the development and progress in the Eu and in the later established GCC. The GCC dissolved ancient barriers to permit the free flow of people and trade within the member nations.

The experiment apparently is working. Unlike the repressive Brussels bureaucrats, Some degree of national control permits the arrangement to function and thrive.

[Olog-hai]

The Gulf Cooperation Council is going the same way as the European Union; indeed some of the same seeds were planted as in the EU (common currency, union of peoples, that sort of thing). Back last spring, they declared that they were becoming a confederation, especially in response to Iran’s belligerence. The whole union of peoples thing is also based on Pan-Arabism, which was copied from Pan-Germanism (yes, that Pan-Germanism).