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Relations between the EU and Saudi Arabia

TA-10-2025-0326 · P10_TA(2025)0326 · PE775.425

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Parliament's resolution on EU-Saudi Arabia relations calls for a strategic partnership agreement, deeper cooperation on energy, trade, security, and human rights, and urges Saudi reforms on labour, women's rights, and the death penalty.

Key points

  1. Calls for negotiating a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Saudi Arabia to cover foreign policy, security, trade, energy, climate, digital, and human rights.
  2. Urges increased cooperation on sustainable energy, critical raw materials, IT, and entrepreneurship, and supports Saudi compliance with EU due diligence laws.
  3. Invites the Commission and member states to consider a Schengen visa waiver for Saudi citizens once the cascade is granted.
  4. Calls for stronger foreign and security cooperation, including counterterrorism, maritime security in the Red Sea, and support for peace in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon.
  5. Urges Saudi Arabia to support sanctions on Russia and help end the Russian shadow fleet's activities.
  6. Calls on the EU and member states to recognise the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, following Saudi Arabia's classification.
  7. Welcomes Vision 2030 reforms and calls for adherence to Paris Agreement commitments, including net zero by 2060 and 50% renewable electricity by 2030.
  8. Calls for full implementation of the 2025 abolishment of the Kafala system, workers' rights to strike and collective bargaining, and compliance with EU due diligence on recruitment fees.
  9. Calls for human rights conditions in the partnership agreement, including ratification of core conventions and release of unjustly imprisoned individuals.
  10. Urges Saudi Arabia to establish a moratorium on executions, decriminalise same-sex sexual activity, and overturn death sentences for crimes committed as minors.

Who is affected

  • Saudi Arabia: faces calls for human rights, labour, and legal reforms, and for cooperation on security and energy.
  • EU institutions and member states: urged to negotiate SPA, consider visa waiver, and recognise Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist.
  • Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia: benefit from calls for Kafala abolition and fair compensation.
  • Human rights defenders and activists: release demanded for those detained for peaceful exercise of rights.

Figures and deadlines

  • More than 345 executions in 2024.
  • Over half of all executions in 2025 have been of foreign nationals.
  • Youth unemployment lowered from 35.01% in 2006 to 16% in 2023.
  • Women's workforce participation risen to 36%; women own 45% of SMEs and 17% of all enterprises.
  • Women account for 41% of civil service and 20% of Shura Council membership.
  • Saudi Arabia pledged net zero by 2060 and 50% renewable electricity by 2030.
  • Saudi Arabia's flagship project to produce four million tonnes of clean hydrogen annually by 2030.
  • Over 5,400 registered civil society associations and organisations in Saudi Arabia.

Legal basis: Articles 205-222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union