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Waiting for the Tube, I saw a poster for an upmarket gym chain. Locations? “City of London. High Street Kensington. Dubai.” It’s a shame to choose a setting marred by bad taste and ill-informed expats. However, the City and Dubai branches should be first rate.

Soon, I was in Doha, and again the Euro-Gulf linkage was inevitable. The emir of Qatar has returned from a state visit to Britain, where the hosts are looking for a trade deal. Swiss-headquartered FIFA recently awarded the World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia. Even in skyscraper-less Muscat, where alleys that might be argued elsewhere in the Gulf meander freely behind the corniche, three restaurants in my hotel are outposts of Mayfair brands.

Shamefully the word “Eurabia” was taken. And by such cranks. (This is a far-right term for an alleged plot to Islamize Europe.) Because we need a word for this relationship. The Arabian peninsula has what Europe lacks: space, natural wealth and the resulting budget surplus to invest in those things. For its part, Europe has “soft” assets that the Gulf states must acquire, host or follow in order to carve out a role in the world’s post-oil. It is not the deepest external connection in the Gulf. Not while 38 percent of people in the UAE and a quarter in Qatar are Indians. But perhaps it is the most symbiotic, if I understand the right word.

True, the US has a defense presence in all six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. This includes the Saudi footprint that Osama bin Laden is not super-stoked about. But daily contact? America is a 15 hour flight. Its soft properties are harder to buy or less desirable. Its citizens have little financial incentive to live in tax havens, since Uncle Sam charges them at least some of the difference.

It wouldn’t take much for Europe’s exposure to the Gulf to age as badly as its former porousness to Russia

In the 1970s, when OPEC profits exploded in London, Anthony Burgess wrote a dystopia where the big hotels became “al-Klaridges” and “al-Dorchester”. What a mental shock even the most mundane Europeans see – we don’t need to go around it – non-white people who have more money than them. However, they can pretend in the Gulf that there is no place to live. Half a century later, their grandchildren would call that copium. In fact, their grandchildren may literally be living there for the economic opportunities. (Al-Dorado?) As a banker friend explained, time zones allow you to sleep late, trade in European markets, then eat late, so young people do on a Gulf stint, not the burnouts of my age. .

But for how long? It is completely impossible in this test, between a universal rights culture and monarchical absolutism, between a mostly secular continent and the inhabited peninsula of an ancient faith, which distinguishes of it from anything I can think of. A relationship can become necessary and unsustainable. It doesn’t take much – some intra-GCC violence, say, as close as 2017 – for Europe’s exposure to the Gulf in the age to be as severe as its previous exposure to Russia. If Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City is found to have committed financial chicanery, a slice of Premier League history will be tarnished. Since it’s a “only” game, I feel like people are less prepared for the backlash.

And it is parochial to think that the relationship can only be destroyed at one end. It is the part of the Gulf that has to make the most unpleasant cultural changes. Since the Europeans associated in 1979 with Iran and perhaps with Margaret Thatcher, they sometimes go through the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by fanatics who think that the House of Saud has softened the western habits. The governments of the region will certainly not forget.

How far a place can go to liberalize without tripping a cultural wire occupies (and is answered differently by) each state, or emirate. Everything is very nice with “Mister Janan” at his hotel in Doha. But the metal scanners that must be passed at every re-entry into the building stand as a reminder of the stakes here. I wonder if Europe and the Gulf have dropped their connection so much because of a little doubt that it will last.

Email Janan at [email protected]

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