Silvia Colombo is Senior Research Fellow in the Mediterranean and Middle East Programme at the International Affairs Institute (IAI) in Rome. An expert on Middle Eastern politics, she works on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, transatlantic relations in the Mediterranean and domestic and regional politics in the Arab World. Among her research interests are the relations between the European Union and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and energy dynamics in the Euro-Mediterranean region. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (Florence Branch) and a Master’s Degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She speaks Arabic fluently and has traveled extensively in the Middle Eastern region. She can be contacted at s.colombo@iai.it.