With Macron in Kuwait... It's time for the 'Thousand Projects' initiative

When French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in Kuwait, while his country faces cost-of-living and economic pressures, the question that should occupy us is: How do we transform Europe’s need for energy, investment, and stability into a partnership that safeguards our interests and builds our children’s future? Major opportunities require a vision that reaches the factory, the university, the hospital, and small businesses, making our capital a partner in production, knowledge, and influence.

In our message to Gulf leaders and governments on the occasion of the 2024 Gulf-European Summit in Brussels, we called for expanding economic, educational, and security cooperation, and proposed the “Thousand Projects” initiative to invest in small European enterprises. Today, developments offer us the opportunity to turn this into a practical program, starting in Kuwait, expanding with the participation of Gulf states, and linking official relations to the daily interests of citizens.

The idea is based on establishing a specialized sovereign fund in each Gulf state, allocating one billion euros to invest in each targeted European country, to build a portfolio of a thousand small and medium-sized projects there, starting with France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, then gradually expanding to other European countries, according to feasibility and opportunities.

Implementing the project in 30 countries means 30,000 projects per Gulf state, with targeted allocations of thirty billion euros, injected in stages, with an average of one million euros per project, with financing varying according to activity and share size, and directed toward small restaurants, bakeries, shops, hotels, maintenance workshops, and health and technical services, as well as factories, through partnerships that support owners and develop their businesses.

Here, Gulf capital reaches the European citizen’s life directly, adding revenue to the host state, while in return generating returns for the Gulf investor, and opening opportunities for our children in training, employment, management, and entrepreneurship, within programs that transfer expertise to their homelands.

When thousands of families, companies, and municipalities are linked to successful projects in which the Gulf participates, the base of shared interests expands, and the weight of our relationship in European economic and political discourse increases. Sustainable influence grows from trust and mutual benefit, and these partnerships enhance our ability to convey our demands and defend our interests, and to gain support for our security and stability, without any automatic guarantee of governments’ positions.

In parallel, public sovereign funds should be directed toward purchasing influential stakes in major energy, manufacturing, and technology companies, with management participation rights, and linking investment to knowledge transfer and opening production lines in the Gulf, so that our invested capital abroad contributes to developing our domestic economy.

In education, we clearly call for purchasing historic European universities and institutes available for ownership, entering into direct partnerships, and investing in their facilities, research, and programs, in accordance with their regulations, while preserving their academic independence. These are institutions that possess expertise, reputation, and scientific networks that can open wide horizons for our children in education, training, and innovation.

Why should we continue to pay only tuition fees, when we have the capacity to participate in the ownership of the institutions where our children study? What is required is to combine investment returns with the development of our education, opening branches of these universities and institutes in the Gulf, qualifying teachers, engineers, and doctors, linking scientific research to our needs, attracting scientists and professors, and exchanging expertise.

In the health sector, investments should be allocated to acquire major hospitals available for purchase, or significant stakes in them, and to enter into direct partnerships, so that treating our patients abroad becomes a service from which we benefit and share in the economic returns, according to medical need and treatment quality. This should be accompanied by opening branches across the Gulf, transferring their expertise and systems, training our personnel, and ultimately localizing advanced treatments while reducing the hardship of travel for patients and their families.

In the transport sector, the vision includes acquiring major airlines or significant stakes in them, and investing in the purchase of airports, their operating companies, or management concessions where regulations permit, alongside ports and shipping. This would link the Gulf to global travel and trade networks, enhance tourism and logistics, and transfer operational, maintenance, and management expertise to our national institutions.

For this vision to succeed, governments should begin with pilot provinces, select professional management teams and reliable partners, and measure returns, job creation, and transferred knowledge, then expand based on results. This must be done while adhering to regulatory approvals, preventing conflicts of interest, and coordinating with Gulf partners on shared files. Sovereign wealth funds are a trust for future generations, and their investment must combine profitability with developmental value.

President Macron’s visit presents an opportunity to pose the bigger question: What do we want from Europe in the next twenty years?

Kuwait can take the initiative, and the Gulf can build a broader economic, intellectual, and social presence. Let us launch “Project 1,000,” linking our interests with Europe’s factories, universities, hospitals, airports, and the lives of its peoples, so that our shared prosperity becomes a force that supports our security, status, and the future of our generations.