On Saturday 13 January, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, announced that €50 million of aid will be granted to support climate transition projects in the agricultural sector.
This programme, in which Spain, Germany, Ireland and Sweden are participating on a bilateral basis, will start in March and will support the economic development of around 600,000 people, predicted Mr Borrell from Guatemala City, where he was attending the inauguration of the new Guatemalan president, Bernardo Arévalo.
The High Representative pointed out that the previous day the EU Council had adopted a regulatory framework enabling sanctions to be imposed on anyone attempting to hinder “the integrity of the democratic process” in Guatemala. Six months after his election, Mr Arévalo’s assumption of power was met with resistance from Guatemalan figures trying to prevent the alternation of power, such as the President of the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office, María Consuelo Porras.
On Sunday, when Mr Arevalo’s inauguration ceremony was delayed for several hours, Mr Borrell, along with representatives of the Organization of American States and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), put pressure on the country’s highest institutions to ensure that the will of the Guatemalan people was respected.
See the statement (in Spanish): https://aeur.eu/f/adu (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)