Cinzia Bianco
Associate Researcher
Current affiliation: European Council on Foreign Relations
Dr. Cinzia Bianco is a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), where she is working on political, security, and economic developments in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf region and relations with Europe. Previously, she was a research fellow for the NATO Defense College Foundation in Rome and the European Commission’s project on EU-GCC relations “Sharaka.” She is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. Bianco holds an MA degree in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King’s College London and a PhD in Middle East Politics from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.
Areas of expertise: political, economic and security dynamic of the Arabian Peninsula; Europe-Gulf relations; climate-energy nexus in the Gulf
Selected bibliography:
- A new climate for peace: How Europe can promote environmental cooperation between the Gulf Arab states and Iran, ECFR Policy Brief, October 2022
- Power play: Europe’s climate diplomacy in the Gulf, ECFR Policy Brief, October 2021
- Can Europe choreograph a Saudi-Iranian détente?, Middle East Directions, European University Institute, March 2021
- Gulf of difference: How Europe can get the Gulf monarchies to pursue peace with Iran, ECFR Policy Brief, December 2020
- A Gulf apart: How Europe can gain influence with the Gulf Cooperation Council, ECFR Policy Brief, February 2020
- “The GCC monarchies: Perceptions of the Iranian threat amid shifting geopolitics.” The International Spectator 55.2, 2020
- (with Gareth Stansfield), “The intra-GCC crises: mapping GCC fragmentation after 2011.” International Affairs 94.3, 2018.