a collection of sovereign states like the existing GCC, or is there a genuine desire to create supra-national institutions that would override state sovereignty in some areas, as in the EU or currency unions like the West African franc?" asked Jane Kinninmont, a senior research fellow at Chatham House in London, in interview.

Even the assistant secretary general of the GCC, Abdel-Aziz Al-Uwaisheg, admitted in an opinion article for Arab News that there needed to be clear goals for a union to be successful: "For it to be effective, the union has to have a clear statement of purpose as well as the right institutions to run such a project. Without infringing on member states' sovereignty, the union has to vest those institutions with enough mandate and authority toeffects of the Arab Spring uprisings reaching its shores, is what pushed Saudi Arabia to start pushing for the plan last December.

"Iran is a major driving factor. It was the Iranian Revolution that helped to encourage the Gulf states to form the GCC in the first place," said Kinninmont. "The wider changes in the Arab world are also a factor. They have already pushed the GCC countries to try to show more of a united front towards issues in Yemen, Libya and Syria."

But Madawi Al-Rashid, a professor of social anthropology at Kings College in London, and a frequent critic of Saudi Arabia, said that she believed that the real motivation behind the proposed union is that of dictators rallying together to protect themselves from demands for democracy from