Spain’s EU presidency wants to mark a new stage in relations with Latin America

On July 1, Spain assumes the six-month Presidency of the European Union (EU), with the stated goal of turning the next six months into a new phase in Europe’s relations with Latin America.

The Spanish presidency begins in July with the EU-CELAC, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit, the first since 2015, and the current government in Madrid, led by socialist Pedro Sanchez, wants the European semester to end. with new trade agreements signed with Chile and Mexico.

He also suggests that at least “substantial steps” have been taken towards a final trade agreement with MERCOSUR (the Southern Common Market formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay).

Despite the importance that Spain, a former colonizer of Latin America, attaches to the EU-CELAC summit, the meeting will take place in Brussels, after Pedro Sanchez first announced it last August during a visit to Colombia.

On the same day, the head of the Spanish government referred to how the war in Ukraine and the pandemic had exposed Europe’s dependence on China and Russia for the supply of industrial products, food, energy or raw materials, and considered it “vital to strengthen ties.” with Latin America.

Since then, Sánchez and other Spanish leaders have reiterated that Latin America is the region of the world with the most “shared values” with Europe, and “middle-income” countries are already a destination for “forward investment” in a context very different from that of Africa. , a continent where relations, from a European point of view, are seen more as cooperation and purely development assistance.

A context that allows the development of a “strategic association” between the EU and Latin America in a mutually beneficial partnership, sources from Moncloa (seat of the Spanish government) confirmed on Tuesday.

The same sources stressed that Spain attaches “great importance” to this summit being a “success” that should lead to progress in trade agreements; in the institutionalization of relations between the two blocs, with the establishment of regular summits and mechanisms for monitoring decisions; in defining an “action plan” with “points in all areas” and in a European “investment agenda” in Latin America.

The decision to hold an EU-CELAC summit in Brussels was intended, as Sanchez said last week, to demonstrate the importance the EU as a whole now attaches to the need for a new partnership with Latin America.

On June 7, the European Commission itself presented a new agenda for EU relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, in which it proposed “strengthening dialogue” and advocated “more regular summits” and “a mechanism for ongoing coordination.”

“Both regions are interested in working together” to achieve “a stronger and more modernized strategic partnership through increased political commitment, promoting trade and investment, and building a more sustainable, fair and connected society through investment,” Brussels defended.

The head of European diplomacy, Spaniard Josep Borrell, added that in these relations one cannot “rely only on traditional ties” and that it is necessary to “bring cooperation to a new level”, and in the middle of this month, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen toured several Latin American countries.

The Latin America and Caribbean region accounts for over 50% of the planet’s biodiversity, as well as 14% of global food production and 45% of net international agrifood trade. It is also a center for renewable energy sources, with alternative sources already accounting for about 60% of the region’s energy mix.

Between the beginning and the end of the Spanish EU presidency on July 23, Spain will hold a general election in which the right will win and there will be the possibility of a replacement of the country’s prime minister midway, which, according to a general of analysts and politicians, will not change Madrid’s priorities regarding European semester.