San Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez, whose country holds the annual presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), informed EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini on Tuesday evening 19 September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that the CELAC countries had decided to set up a working group to propose new dates, in 2018, for the biennial EU-CELAC summit.
The representatives of both the European Commission and the Latin American and Caribbean countries underlined the importance of these summits in strengthening the political and economic links between the two regional blocs, according to a press release from the European External Action Service (EEAS).
The political and economic crisis in Venezuela prompted the Lain American countries to call for the EU-CELAC summit, originally scheduled to be held in San Salvador at the end of October, to be postponed (see EUROPE 11865).
EU and Venezuela keep communication channels open. At a meeting with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza on Tuesday, Mogherini stressed the importance and the urgency “for a peaceful negotiated solution, respecting human rights and plurality of the opinions in a deeply divided country”. The two parties agreed to keep the channels of the communication open, the EEAS said. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)