Spain promotes a major summit between the EU and Latin America under its presidency in 2023

2022-07-11T20:01:22.084Z

The European and Latin American heads of state and government have not met since 2015, although they should have done so every two years

Pedro Sánchez with King Felipe VI, during his speech at the Ibero-American Summit held in Andorra in 2021. FRANCISCO GOMEZ

The Government wants to take advantage of the Spanish presidency of the EU – which it will assume in the second half of next year – to relaunch relations between Europe and Latin America, which have languished in recent years, leaving a gap that has been taken advantage of by China.

Spanish diplomacy has already taken the first steps to promote the holding in Spain of a summit between the European Union and CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), to which 60 heads of state and government would be invited, more than who attended the recent NATO meeting in Madrid.

If the initiative prospers, that meeting at the highest level would be the jewel in the crown of the Spanish Presidency of the EU and the first of its kind to be held since 2015, when the European and Latin American leaders met in Brussels (Belgium).

The fact that seven years have passed without meeting, despite the fact that they planned to do so on a biennial basis, shows how far the two regions have grown apart.

Between 1999 and 2015 eight summits of this type were held (two of them in Madrid) and never more than three years passed between them.

The reason for this distancing, according to the sources consulted, must be found in Europe's inability to implement the trade agreements it reaches.

After 20 years of negotiation, the European Commission and Mercosur (which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) reached an agreement in principle in June 2019 that created a market of 800 million consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.

However, three years later, the pact is still blocked by the opposition of France (with the support of Austria, Holland, Ireland and Belgium) which, with the argument of defending the environment, is opposed to removing tariff barriers that protect its farmers and ranchers.

The updating of trade agreements with Mexico and Chile, although not as complex, is also moving slowly,

This apparent disinterest of the EU towards Latin America has been taken advantage of by China, which, with a volume of exchanges of 450,000 million dollars in 2021, has displaced Europe as the second commercial partner of the region (after the United States) and main financier of infrastructures, with the incorporation of a dozen Latin American countries (including Mexico or Brazil) to the New Silk Road promoted by Beijing.

It has also used the pandemic to gain ground in Latin America, to which it has supplied millions of vaccines.

Spanish diplomacy relies on Germany's support to try to stop Europe's loss of weight in the region and even recover part of the lost ground.

It will not be easy, acknowledge the sources consulted, with the political polarization that exists throughout the continent.

The veto of the Biden Administration to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua motivated the absence at the recent Summit of the Americas, in Los Angeles (USA), of Mexican President Andrés López Obrador, among other guests.

Turn to the left

Latin America has taken a swerve to the left in the last year with the election of presidents Pedro Castillo (Peru), Gabriel Boric (Chile) and Gustavo Petro (Colombia), and the turnaround could be completed if Lula da Silva prevails in the Brazilian elections in October for the current president, Jair Bolsonaro.

A summit in the second half of 2023 should serve for Europe to build bridges with the new Latin American leadership.

The Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has surveyed several of his colleagues in the region in recent months about their willingness to participate in a summit of these characteristics and the response has been positive, according to the sources consulted.

The great opportunity to commit their assistance will be provided by the Ibero-American summit scheduled for next March in the Dominican Republic, which will be attended by Felipe VI and President Pedro Sánchez.

The rotating presidency of the EU is, according to the plans of the Executive, the second most important international event of the legislature, after the NATO summit, and should serve as the culmination of it (if the elections, initially planned for end of the year).

Although the rotating presidencies of the EU have been losing their luster, since the formal meetings of heads of state and government are always held in Brussels, the countries whose turn it is to organize ministerial meetings in their territory and even some informal meeting of leaders, such as the social summit held in Porto in May 2021 under the Portuguese presidency.

The Government's plan continues to be to give impetus to the EU's social agenda during its semester of presidency, but the organization of an EU-Latin America summit is a much more ambitious objective.

The sources consulted admit the risk of a fiasco if there is a general sit-in of leaders, but they maintain that, if Spain does not try, no other country (the next ones that correspond to the presidency are Belgium and Hungary) will do so.

The success of the NATO summit, for which Spain has received unanimous congratulations, encourages the Executive to embark on the effort to restore relations between Latin America and the EU.

The alternative to the summit would be a meeting of the presidents of the European institutions (Commission, Council and High Representative) and regional organizations (Mercosur, SICA,

The Presidency of the EU will be the great international event in Spain in the second half of 2023, but the institutional one will be the oath of the Constitution by the Princess of Asturias before the Cortes Generales, scheduled for October 31, the day that turns 18 years old.

The call for elections conditions and is conditioned by both.

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