Hormuz crisis hit fuel prices, shipping, and daily life

When the Strait of Hormuz came under threat during the 2026 US-Israeli war with Iran, the stakes were never confined to boardrooms or ministries. The crisis touched daily life at both ends of the Gulf-Europe corridor: the price and availability of fuel, the security of shipping lanes carrying everyday goods, and the reliability of the energy systems households and public services depend on. That is the central finding of a new policy brief by Valbona Zeneli, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, who argues that the moment of danger also opened a rare window to build lasting protections for the public.

The numbers behind that argument are substantial. The Gulf Cooperation Council is the European Union’s sixth-largest trading partner, and the EU ranks as the GCC’s second-largest partner. Bilateral trade in goods reached 165.7 billion euros in 2025, comprising 110.3 billion euros in EU exports and 55.4 billion euros in imports. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia together account for more than three-quarters of EU-GCC trade, making them the bloc’s principal economic partners in the region. Trade in services added another 84.4 billion euros in 2024, a figure that has more than doubled over the past decade. Behind these figures sit supply chains, jobs, and consumer prices that ordinary citizens feel directly when disruption strikes.

The vulnerability exposed by the war was stark. Global oil demand now stands at 105 million barrels per day, yet the Gulf’s so-called bypass infrastructure was built for a much smaller market. That leaves limited capacity to cushion a prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which much of the region’s energy exports must pass. The Red Sea faced similar exposure. For Europeans, the implications are immediate. The EU consumes 10.6 million barrels of oil per day and imports 97 percent of its crude, so secure access to Gulf energy supplies and maritime routes is not an abstraction but a strategic imperative underpinning public welfare.

Zeneli’s brief frames the crisis as a turning point. What had been treated as a commercial priority, Gulf-Europe connectivity, was transformed into an instrument of resilience and security. The question she poses is whether that shift will endure once the immediate danger recedes, or whether it will fade back into routine diplomacy.

So far, the answer is not encouraging. Flagship initiatives meant to build more resilient connections, including the EU-GCC Free Trade Agreement and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, known as IMEC, have yet to move beyond political declarations despite renewed momentum. Talks continue, but citizens have seen little concrete protection. Meanwhile, the brief notes an asymmetry in pace: Gulf investment and infrastructure development often outstrip Europe’s decision-making and regulatory processes, leaving the European side of the partnership slower to translate intent into capability.

The prescription follows directly from the diagnosis. The priority, Zeneli writes, should be to turn crisis-driven innovations into permanent, well-financed institutional frameworks. Those innovations include alternative transport corridors, bypass infrastructure, and regional supply-chain coordination, all of which emerged or gained traction under the pressure of the Hormuz crisis. Locking them in, with stable financing rather than ad hoc responses, would give the public a durable layer of protection against the next disruption rather than a scramble each time one arrives.

For readers, the takeaway is straightforward. Connectivity between Europe and the Gulf is not merely a trade story; it is a question of how reliably energy, goods, and services reach the people who depend on them. The window opened by crisis will not stay open indefinitely, and the brief’s message is that governments on both sides owe their citizens more than declarations. Whether they deliver before it closes remains the open question.