as measures that allow citizens of these states to live, work and set up businesses in each others' countries without the need for special visas or permissions.

Efforts towards a common currency foundered in 2009 after Oman dropped out of the plan in 2006 and the UAE also pulled out after a squabble with Saudi Arabia over where a GCC central bank would be headquartered. The UAE wanted it in their capital, Abu Dhabi, while the Saudis wanted it in Riyadh.

Expectations were high that some sort of union would be announced in Riyadh this week, especially after Saudi King Abdullah had announced the union plans last December, and after comments by Bahraini King Hamad this week that he welcomed the establishment of the union. But there has also beena steady stream of opposition from Bahrainis on Twitter and even from Saudis in the local media, afraid that the openness of several Gulf states would be squashed in a union with super-conservative Saudi Arabia.

"I will join the opposition against the Gulf union if it forces Kuwait, which is the only GCC country that enjoys free parliamentary elections, to cancel its parliamentary system... just to please Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman," wrote Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashid, Saudi head of the satellite TV news channel Al-Arabiya, in an opinion piece for Arab News daily.

In February, even Kuwait's speaker of parliament, Ahmed Al-Saadoun expressed his doubts on a Gulf union in comments to Al-Arabiya, saying: "It is very difficult for a country like Kuwait that grants freedom of speech, and where