When the leaders of a regional grouping wanted to build economic cooperation as a road to greater political unity, they looked to energy and heavy industry as the key.
This is not the GCC in 2012, but the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of today's European Union, first proposed in May 1950 by the visionary French foreign minister Robert Schuman.
The idea of a closer Gulf federation, raised by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia last December, suddenly returned to prominence this month at the GCC leaders' meeting in Riyadh. But with only Bahrain enthusiastic and Qatar giving a probably tactical welcome, the prospects of immediate closer union seem doubtful. As with Europe, economics may be a better place to start - and petroleum is the Gulf's key resource, as coal was for Europe in the 1950s.
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