The European Union’s Estonian energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, advanced plans for a green energy cooperation agreement between Brussels and Saudi Arabia over the weekend, at a bilateral meeting with the Kingdom’s energy minister—devoid of any mention of the Islamic state’s appalling human rights record.
Part of a wider trend of oil-rich Arab countries embracing some degree of environmentalist rhetoric in an apparent move away from fossil fuels, the meeting took place on the sidelines of a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) that was being held in Riyadh at the time on Sunday, April 28th. Brussels is confident that a memorandum of understanding between the bloc and the Saudis over the next year will facilitate the flow of investment into green technologies, while weaning Riyadh away from oil and gas. Simson’s liaison comes days after Eurocrats approved visa liberalisation for Saudi Arabia and multiple other Gulf states.
Despite being a major exporter of oil worldwide, Saudi Arabia played a surprisingly prominent role at the recent COP29 summit in Dubai last year, aimed at reducing global emissions in a diplomatic move many environmentalists regarded as cynical ‘greenwashing.’
Others have accused the Kingdom of talking both sides of its mouth: simultaneously bigging up green rhetoric to the West while expanding its oil exports in Africa and Asia, even while plans for a Saudi Arabian eco-city hit the skids.
Noticeably absent at the meeting was any mention of human rights concerns the EU traditionally airs about Saudi Arabia’s stance on women, migrant workers, or religious minorities, with the Wahabi-run country still actively maintaining the death penalty as a potential punishment for same-sex sexual conduct.
Throughout the years, the EU and various Western NGOs have issued multiple statements condemning the Saudi government’s stances on religious and sexual minorities,
In response to claims by The European Conservative that the EU was downplaying Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, a Commission spokesperson referred to a recent dialogue on the matter hosted in Brussels last December.
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Not the only petrostate Brussels is keen to placate, the EU’s stance on Azerbaijan is similarly said to be moderated by the bloc’s reliance on Azeri gas despite its aggression against Armenia with the Saudis, which is even a major hindrance to European plans to confiscate Russian financial assets.
The largest exporter of crude oil on planet Earth, the Netherlands, is disproportionately exposed to Saudi Arbian oil imports, according to official statistics, as Riyadh pushes for the EU to soften its position on Palestine.
