Madrid/Brussels, 19/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - There have been changes in European Union-Latin American relations since the EU-Latin American and Caribbean Summit in Lima, Peru, in 2008. On the one hand, the financial crisis has been a wake-up call to the EU, which has been busy with attempts to cut debt levels and deficits. On the other hand, Latin American countries are coming through the current crisis better than the EU, although they have not yet solved all their poverty eradication and local peace-making problems. After the recent EU-Mercosur Summit (see EUROPE 10141), the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, congratulated Mercosur on its excellent growth prospects. At the closing ceremony of the EU-Latin America Summit in Madrid, the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, hailed Latin America's strength as a young, dynamic continent that has several years of economic growth ahead of it. At a press conference, he then tired to play down the impact of the Spanish government's decision to cut its foreign aid by some €600 million from now into next year as part of the Spanish austerity programme. Argentina's president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner did not seem concerned about greater competition from eurozone goods due to the falling value of the euro, explaining that Latin America will remain highly competitive. Brazil, a key economic power, is planning to play a greater role in world diplomacy and is trying to intercede with Turkey on behalf of Iran in the Iranian nuclear saga.
Well aware that the next Presidencies of the Council of the EU may ignore Latin America, the Spanish Presidency has pulled out the stops to make the Madrid Summit a success. It has achieved tangible outcomes in trade issues like the signing of a free trade deal with Central America (Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Salvador), the first EU free trade deal with a sub-regional body (see EUROPE 10141); officially re-opening talks with Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) that had been on hold since 2004, despite opposition from 10 EU Member States; and the signing of an EU trade deal with Colombia and a similar deal with Peru. The Madrid Summit can also boast of the setting up of an EU-Latin American foundation based on the Anna Lindh EuroMed Relations Foundation, to foster closer ties at civil society level (Hamburg, Milan and Paris are vying with one another to host the new foundation); a €125 million (by 2013) fund for infrastructure which the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, said would be able to leverage up to €3 billion in funding. Its first project will help Central American small businesses to invest in sustainable technology.
Coconuts. In addition to stronger ties in areas as varied as scientific innovation, immigration, tackling organised crime (a joint action plan setting out aims and expected results will be published), the EU and Latin America repeated and fine-tuned their views on a raft of major challenges like how to deal with the financial crisis, reform of international bodies and dealing with climate change. Everyone said that imaginative, global solutions were required to meet the scale of the challenges. Problems arise at the same speed as coconuts fall from the tree but solutions only grow at the same speed as the coconut palm itself, regretted the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera Echenique, whose country will be hosting the next EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit in 2012. He echoed the words of the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had made a flying four-hour visit to Madrid, that things are moving too slowly. Similar noises were made by Barroso, who said that the slow progress in reforming the financial industry (initiated by the G20) had not resulted in any clear decisions.
Haiti. On the fringes of the summit, the Haitian prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, and the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, drummed up support for the next donor conference for Haiti (in Punta Cana on 2 June 2010), which in addition to emergency aid, would also be examining what has to be done and with whom, explained Bellerive. Fernández said there were several aspects to the rebuilding of Haiti - rebuilding physical, social and institutional infrastructure, creating development areas and promoting cultural, artistic and religious heritage.
Two Latin American countries took advantage of the summit to bring up domestic issues of concern to EU Member States. Argentina called on the United Kingdom to enter talks on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands under the aegis of the United Nations, and the Bolivian President, Evo Morales, accused the right wing in Spain of supporting the failed 2008 coup d'état against him. Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, attended the summit but the subject of Cuba was carefully avoided by the politicians. (M.B. trans fl)