Infrequently Asked Questions on the Monetary Union of the Countries of the Gulf Co-Operation Council

This article places the monetary union of the countries of the GCC, which is to be established in 2010, in the context of their recent monetary history and in the context of other monetary unions. It shows that the decision to join (or withdraw from, or re-join) a monetary union is both an economic and a political matter. The principal conclusion is that this new currency arrangement in the GCC countries, although of great importance, is not as dramatic a change as it might appear and, especially, that it is significantly different from the euro zone