Page 372 - Truncal States to UAE_Neat

The Formation of the Federation
proaches; Qatar argued all along that the preparation of the
permanent constitution was only one item of many in the Dubai
Agreement which should be activated and its authorities estab­
lished; a President and a capital city should be decided upon. Qatar
bombarded this meeting and subsequent Supreme Council meetings
with suggestions, legal opinions, memoranda and draft agreements,
all aimed at actually making the federation start functioning.
Abu Dhabi advocated proceeding slowly, allowing time to adjust
to the new situation and to anticipate the consequences of each move.
Abu Dhabi adopted a very cautious altitude towards the establish­
ment of institutions at that time, realising how very difficult it could be
to change certain functions once they had become institutionalised.
The Abu Dhabi delegation wanted to concentrate on creating the
right federation with, in due course, the right constitution on the basis
of the experts’ drafts and informal consultations among member
States. It was less concerned about how the union would function in
the interim period. Bahrain went along with Abu Dhabi in wanting to
leave all decisions of importance to the constitution-making period,
but it had already indicated that it had very definite views on certain
issues.

Three meetings of the Supreme Council of Rulers
If we consider the meeting of the nine Rulers in February 1968 as the
first session of the Supreme Council, the second session was
convened in Abu Dhabi on 25 and 26 May 1968. It held four closed
meetings, from one of which even the closest advisers of the Rulers
were excluded. The final communique was merely a statement of the
intention to strengthen the Union. However, the meeting had been
unlikely to make many decisions, for some of the issues were being
put in front of the Rulers, with any clarity, for the first time. The
majority (excluding Qatar, Dubai, and Ra’s al Khaimah) preferred not
to proceed with establishing the institutions proposed in the Dubai
agreement, but reiterated the desire to obtain a legal expert from
outside the area to draft the constitution. In the event, no decision
was taken on that either.31
The third meeting of the Supreme Council of Rulers, scheduled for
1 July in Abu Dhabi, eventually took place a week later, giving time
for more last-minute consultations. The Government of Qatar had
decided to refer this matter of the tardiness of the members in
building the Union’s institutions to two legal experts of their choice.
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