The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, continued his efforts, on Saturday 25 March, to convince Latin American and Caribbean countries to finalise trade agreements with the EU.
We should take advantage of the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2023 to “tackle some of the unfinished business” in the trade area before “the search for security and protectionism prevent us” from completing it, Borrell said during his speech at the Ibero-American summit in the Dominican Republic.
In addition to the EU/Mercosur agreement (see EUROPE 13148/21), the EU/Chile and EU/Mexico agreements have yet to be finalised.
In the opinion of the High Representative, holding the Ibero-American summit less than four months before the EU/CELAC summit, which will take place on 17 and 18 July in Brussels (see EUROPE 13107/17), “sends a political signal to the rest of the world of the partners’ willingness to increase coordination between the European and Ibero-American spaces”.
Borrell recalled that Europeans invest more in the Latin American continent than Russia, China, India and Japan combined.
See the declaration of the Ibero-American summit (in Spanish): https://aeur.eu/f/627 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)