Arab News | Frankly Speaking: We stand in full solidarity with Saudi Arabia, says EU ambassador

The European Union’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia has pledged full solidarity with Saudi Arabia over Saturday’s deadly attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, after outlining efforts to reinforce maritime security in the leadup to this month’s GCC-EU summit.

The Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen blamed the Yemen’s Houthis for the attack, which killed 12 people and injured 309 others, some critically, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation. The dead included four Saudis and eight foreign nationals.

“The EU strongly condemns the deadly attack on Riyadh international airport,” Christophe Farnaud told Arab News. “There can be no justification for indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

He added: “This dangerous escalation threatens regional stability and global security. We stand in full solidarity with Saudi Arabia and its people.”

Appearing earlier on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” Farnaud said Europe’s condemnation of Houthi attacks reflected a consistent position, extending back to its support for Gulf countries during Iranian attacks earlier this year.

He pointed to statements by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, as well as support from individual member states, including France, Italy and Greece.

Pressed on what solidarity meant while Houthi attacks continued, he said disruption around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al-Mandab threatened economies far beyond the Gulf. Europe’s interests and those of regional countries were closely connected, he argued, making an active response essential.

He cited Operation Aspides, the EU naval mission established to protect freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, as a concrete example of collective European action.

“And as you might have heard, we are working on reinforcing Aspides currently. So, this is a very concrete example of what we’re doing,” he told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen.

The mission, launched in February 2024 in response to Houthi attacks on shipping, operates under a defensive mandate.

Farnaud also pointed to Operation Atalanta as part of Europe’s wider maritime presence. He credited Aspides with helping ships pass through Bab Al-Mandab and the Red Sea, while acknowledging that a naval mission could contribute to security without resolving the underlying conflict.

Reinforcement required agreement among the EU’s members, he said: “It’s 27 countries that have to decide together. So, it is a longer process, but it is working.”

Farnaud said European representatives had attended meetings of the Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, and were working toward an observer role. “And we are now working on having an observer in that new coalition.”

Asked whether Europe would add further assets if threats intensified, he declined to anticipate decisions beyond the current effort, saying the EU remained in constant contact with its Gulf partners.

At an extraordinary meeting on March 5, EU and GCC ministers recognized Gulf states’ right to defend themselves and stressed that the region’s stability was closely linked to European security and the global economy.

On Yemen, Jensen pressed him repeatedly on whether the EU supported the internationally recognized government’s military offensive to retake Houthi-held territory.

Farnaud invoked the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, while maintaining that any lasting solution required a political process. “It’s up to the Kingdom to decide what they want to do. And of course, and even more, the Yemeni government forces,” he said.

“What we need is stability, it’s peace, it’s international law implemented, and of course a political diplomatic process.”

He said Europe was maintaining contact with Saudi Arabia and trying to facilitate a wider process leading to peace. The tensions made the coming Riyadh summit more significant, he argued, without preventing the two sides from meeting.

“We are coming precisely to build a comprehensive framework between the two regions, precisely to allow for more peaceful development and stability,” he said.

For Farnaud, that framework needed to reflect a broader understanding of security, encompassing the ability of economies and societies to withstand disruption. Resilience, energy, the movement of people and data, and the connections sustaining trade were all part of the same discussion.

“Connectivity will be one of the key words of the upcoming summit,” he said.

The impact of blockades made those connections particularly important, he said. Security could no longer be treated as a matter of defense alone when disruption to shipping affected the economic prospects of both regions.

Farnaud envisioned the Riyadh gathering as a “defining moment” for a relationship that had strengthened across political dialogue, business and exchanges between people.

The EU had identified the Gulf as strategically important, he said, and cooperation had expanded around regional issues and support for Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation.

The first GCC-EU summit, held in Brussels in October 2024, had provided a starting point. The second, the first to take place in the Gulf, was intended to move toward further concrete results.

He said the agenda would include economic security, resilience and autonomy alongside regional diplomacy, although preparations were continuing and he could not specify every outcome.

The immediate objective was work on trade and investment that could help establish a facilitating framework, he said. The exact outcome remained under discussion.

For now, Farnaud outlined work toward future visa waivers for Gulf nationals, saying that the Oct. 24 gathering could provide an opportunity to make progress.

“The EU has devised a new Visa Strategy. It provides a framework and stipulates conditions for future visa waiver processes. Positive work is underway in that direction with the five Gulf countries,” he said.

“The EU-GCC Summit will provide a platform to make progress. Whatever steps are agreed there would be the start of a process.”

Farnaud expressed hope that the summit would offer an opportunity to turn a rapidly deepening relationship into practical cooperation on security, investment and connectivity.

But he cautioned that a full free trade agreement would not emerge from the summit, instead advocating progress in individual sectors while work on a broader framework continued.

Farnaud rejected the suggestion that major obstacles or a shortage of political will have prevented a stronger partnership. The two sides did not have identical positions on every issue, he acknowledged, but shared interests had brought them closer.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 transformation, the expectations of younger generations and global challenges all reinforced the case for cooperation, he said. “You have to build your solutions with partners.”

The scale of existing economic ties, Farnaud argued, showed that the partnership already went well beyond diplomatic statements.

The EU was the GCC’s second-largest trading partner, he said, and exchanges of goods and services with Saudi Arabia alone had approached €90 billion in 2025.

He described the EU collectively as the Kingdom’s largest foreign direct investor, accounting for about a third of its inward foreign direct investment stock.

Those investments, according to him, helped drive the country’s transformation while demonstrating confidence in its future.

“It is also a sign of deep trust,” he said. “And I think this is a key element that these exchanges contribute to build. It is the trust, the reliability between the partners. And this is where we intend to do more, of course.”

More than 2,500 European companies were present in Saudi Arabia, Farnaud said, investing and participating in trade. The task now was to make those exchanges easier and build a framework that allowed them to expand, including through training, university partnerships and research.

He said European and Saudi universities already cooperated, while European research programs such as Horizon offered opportunities to do more together.

Trade negotiations, however, remained a test of whether political ambition could produce practical results.

Talks on an EU-GCC free trade agreement began in 1990 and were suspended in 2008. Asked why progress had taken so long, Farnaud said the process needed to accelerate.

He advocated looking for opportunities in individual sectors while a comprehensive agreement remained further away, saying: “I think that the process clearly has to be accelerated in a way.”

Rather than wait for every element of a full agreement to be settled, he said, the partners should explore where they could make specific progress. “Let’s be concrete between the Gulf countries and the European Union,” he said.

This was one of the approaches Europe wanted to favor at the summit, with contacts continuing at both senior and working levels, according to Farnaud.

However, when Jensen asked whether that meant a free trade agreement could be announced in Riyadh, he played down the possibility.

“No, a full free trade agreement, it’s impossible,” he said. “You don’t build an FTA in such a short time.”

Artificial intelligence offered a more immediate example of cooperation taking shape through companies, investment and research.

Farnaud praised Saudi Arabia’s efforts, including HUMAIN and the LEAP technology event, while emphasizing that Europe also viewed AI as a priority.

Europe’s approach extended beyond legislation such as the AI Act to promoting investment and research, he said.

The cost and scale of developing the technology made partnerships valuable, allowing both sides to pool resources and expertise.

Farnaud pointed to the recently announced collaboration between French AI company Mistral and HUMAIN as evidence that Saudi technology partnerships were expanding across different international markets.

The companies announced their collaboration in August, covering AI infrastructure, model development and deployment in Saudi Arabia and the wider region.

He also highlighted the potential for cooperation on technology capable of working in languages beyond English.

Mistral’s experience with French-language AI and Saudi efforts to develop Arabic-language capabilities created an opportunity to work together, he said.

“I think this kind of new dimension will be key for the future. And this is exactly an example where Europe and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states more widely have a shared interest.”

On Iran, Farnaud defended Europe’s use of sanctions alongside continued diplomacy, arguing that pressure and dialogue were both needed to pursue a lasting solution.

Keeping channels open did not require trust, he said. It allowed messages to be conveyed, positions to be understood and possible solutions to be developed.

“Does it mean that we trust them? Maybe not.”

He underlined the importance of maintaining diplomatic contact with Iran during a highly sensitive period.

Sanctions remained necessary when conduct was unacceptable, he said, but Europe also needed to keep open the possibility of a political settlement.

Asked whether sanctions were changing Iranian behavior, Farnaud argued that they had value even if they could not resolve the crisis alone.

They sent a strong signal, including to the Iranian public, and created obstacles for targeted institutions and individuals, he said. Underestimating those effects risked drawing the wrong conclusions, while expecting sanctions to provide the entire solution would also be mistaken.

Europe needed to work with Gulf partners on possible paths toward a settlement and a future regional security architecture, he said, recognizing that countries in the region were the principal actors.

Such work might not produce spectacular results in the short term, but it remained essential to finding a sustainable way forward.

Farnaud praised Saudi Arabia’s efforts to favor stability and lasting political solutions, presenting that approach as another point of convergence with Europe.

On Palestine, he said the EU and Gulf countries should use their shared support for a two-state solution to develop common positions and prepare for a political settlement.

The immediate humanitarian crisis and the longer-term diplomatic objective both required sustained engagement, he argued.

“The current situation is extremely difficult for the population in Gaza. And we need a long-term solution,” he said.

Farnaud described Europe as the main donor to Palestinians, while stressing that assistance had to be accompanied by work toward a lasting peace. “And the longer-term means looking together into the direction of a lasting peace, and a lasting peace for us is a two-state solution.”

Asked whether Palestinian statehood was any closer, he declined to make a prediction but said the parameters of a settlement were already known. The task was to sustain a diplomatic and political process allowing Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and stability.

European and Saudi efforts, including meetings in New York, had helped build awareness of the need to establish those parameters and prepare to implement them when circumstances allowed, he said.

For Farnaud, the Riyadh summit offered a chance to strengthen that common diplomatic position as part of a partnership spanning regional security and economic change. The urgency of the current crisis made cooperation more necessary, he argued, while the trust built through existing ties provided a basis for further action.