The European Union and Latin America look at each other from afar, speak little to each other, get along without fuss and when they argue it is not usually serious, but the lack of interest has been mutual for a long time.
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An anecdote serves as an example: only two Mexican newspapers; Clarionfrom Buenos Aires, and EL TIEMPO, from Colombia, have correspondents in Brussels, a city with more than 800 foreign correspondents, the second in the world only after Washington. Beyond the Spanish and the large agencies, the presence of European correspondents in Latin America is also less.
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The European Union (EU) – Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) summit – which brings together 60 countries: 27 European and 33 Latin American – which starts this Monday the 17th in Brussels, which has not been held since 2015 (when it should be held every two years), it must be the moment in which the two blocks reactivate that ossified relationship. Europeans know that China has already surpassed them in terms of trade and investment, but they believe that in terms of values, the “old” and “new” worlds are closer..
The announcements will not be very specific beyond the creation of a permanent mechanism of which there are few details and which should serve as a small secretariat that keeps up with the summits, because Celac does not even have permanent staff. There will also be an announcement of millionaire European investments in Latin America within its Global Gateway program.
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The Spanish MEP Javi López, one of those who has the most relationship with work related to Latin America and with its political representatives, explained to EL TIEMPO that this summit “is the port of departure, not the port of arrival, it is just one more sample of the renewed strategic interest of Europe in strengthening relations with Latin America”.
It is the port of departure, not the port of arrival, it is just one more example of Europe’s renewed strategic interest in strengthening relations with Latin America.
López applauds the proposal to create a permanent institutionalized mechanism to keep the relationship active.
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At the moment, trade agreements continue to resist. The renewal of the agreement between the EU and Chile does not arrive on time for this summit because the European side lacks the ratification of the European Parliament. For its part, the renewal of the agreement with Mexico has not reached that step. In the presentation of the priorities of the six-month Presidency of the European bloc, the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, said that the holding of the summit was good news and that he hoped that progress would be made in the trade agreements that were blocked or especially slow in their ratification.
The truth is that the great pending agreement, politically made four years ago, between the EU and Mercosur was never put to a vote among the trade ministers of the European bloc and has already received a contrary resolution from the European Parliament. At least eight European countries are against it. To get them to give in, the EU is trying to get Mercosur to accept environmental protection conditions that Brazilian President Lula da Silva sees as impositions.
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Lula criticizes that Europe proposes sanctions instead of incentives. And if these environmental concerns are true, agricultural protectionism is hidden behind them because France leads a group of almost a dozen countries that do not want Mercosur’s agriculture to enter the European bloc more easily.
The European chancellor, the Spanish-Argentine Josep Borrell, already said that one should not expect “that the summit is the moment in which they say that’s it, the problem is over”, referring to the agreement with Mercosur.
However, there are more optimistic officials. The European Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, explained at the end of June that the summit is “an important milestone for the EU agreement with Mercosur”.
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The official recalled that he proposed an “additional instrument of sustainability” (with this he tries to convince France and the other European countries that hide their rejection of the agreement after the French no) and that he is waiting for a response, but in Mercosur a counter-proposal is being prepared.
On the Latin American side, Lula will be one of the protagonists of the meeting with the Chilean Gabriel Boric and President Gustavo Petro. The three of them will have a separate meeting, early Tuesday morning, with the Spanish president and the prime ministers of Portugal (Antonio Costa) and Germany (Olaf Scholz).
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Regarding this agreement between the EU and Mercosur, MEP Javi López considers that it is necessary to allocate “time, work and political capital to conclude the negotiations. He has shown the will to advance in these negotiations, so the summit will be the trigger to show, on the part of both, sufficient will and flexibility to unblock the negotiations ”.
The European institutions are beginning to understand that the relationship with Latin American partners cannot be simply through Trade officials, that it must be more political. This explains the continuous trips of the European Foreign Minister Josep Borrell and the four stopovers (Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Mexico City) that the President of the European Commission, Úrsula Von der Leyen, made in June.
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In Brussels, no one hides the fact that there are also important issues that separate the blocs, such as the war in Ukraine. If for the Europeans it is a vital issue, in which they are investing billions of euros and a good part of their military arsenals, from Latin America it is seen differently because for some countries it is not so clear that the responsibility for the conflict lies solely with on the Russian side. In fact, the big question will be whether or not a reference to Ukraine is made in the communiqué that must close the summit or if it was abandoned due to how distant the positions are.
IDAFE MARTIN PEREZ
FOR THE TIME
BRUSSELS
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