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Bin Salman started his European tour from Greece, where he signed a number of agreements
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will have dinner Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron, as part of a European tour he started in Greece.
This visit constitutes a new step to “rehabilitate” the Crown Prince, less than two weeks following US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which established the return of Mohammed bin Salman to the international arena.
Mohammed bin Salman, who began his small European tour in Greece, arrived on Wednesday evening at Orly Airport in Paris, where he was received by the French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire, according to a government source.
As for Macron, who is in Africa, the French presidency said in a statement that he will return on Thursday followingnoon and receive Mohammed bin Salman hours later at a scheduled working dinner at the Elysee.
Bin Salman’s visit follows Macron’s visit to Jeddah in December, when they launched an initiative to help Lebanon.
Last week, Macron received in Paris the new President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. On this occasion, the two countries signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement for Energy Cooperation”.
The war in Ukraine and rising energy prices have prompted Western countries to approach Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, which is trying to persuade it to increase production to calm markets.
But Riyadh is resisting pressure from its allies, citing its commitments to the oil-exporting countries within the OPEC + alliance with Moscow.
Bin Salman’s European tour marks the return of the Saudi crown prince to the international arena following the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.
The visit comes less than two weeks following US President Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia, and held several meetings, including with the Crown Prince.
The move represented a retreat for Biden, who had promised during his election campaign to turn the kingdom into a “pariah” state over the Khashoggi murder case and its human rights record.
Bin Salman visited Greece on Tuesday and Wednesday to sign agreements on maritime transport, energy, defense technology, waste management, and culture.
The Crown Prince, accompanied by three ministers and a delegation of important investors, held a meeting in Athens with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
At the start of his meeting with Mitsotakis, the Crown Prince said that “the relations between the two countries are historic and we will have the opportunity to finalize” a series of bilateral projects, including the construction of an electricity line linking the Kingdom with Greece, which will provide Europe with “energy (at much cheaper prices).”
Analyst Christian Ulrichsen of the James Baker Institute at Rice University considered Prince Mohammed’s visit to Europe a “very symbolic step following his isolation following Khashoggi,” he told AFP.
Last April, Prince Mohammed received Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who returned and received the Saudi crown prince in Ankara in June, in two visits that closed the page of the dispute between the two countries.
Erdogan had angered the Saudis by his relentless pursuit of the Khashoggi case, opening a criminal investigation and briefing the international media on the horrific details of Khashoggi’s murder.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent record rise in fuel prices at the beginning of this year, Saudi Arabia came under pressure from the United States and European countries to pump more oil to ease prices.
Fuel prices were a major factor in increasing inflation to record rates in 40 years.
It is expected that the issue of energy will be on the agenda of the crown prince during his visit to France, although it is unlikely that the kingdom will change its position on its oil production, according to the deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Saudi Shura Council, Huda Al-Halisi.
“We are on a specific path and we need to see through it,” Al-Halisi told AFP, stressing that there are many opportunities for concluding agreements on sustainable energy and other efforts in the fight once morest climate change.
She added that it is likely that security concerns occupy a large part of the meetings.
These concerns include those related to Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s role in Yemen, where a fragile truce between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led military coalition supporting the internationally recognized government ends in early August.
