Brussels, 22/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, the European Commission adopted two decisions regarding cooperation with Latin America. The first establishes a five-year regional strategy. Its priority actions are the promotion of regional integration by strengthening civil society networks, a social initiative for helping to reduce inequalities and a programme for preventing natural disasters (indicative budget: EUR 250 million). The second concerns a high-level study award programme with a budget of EUR 45 million for the first phase (2002-2005). The aim is to "contribute to the region's economic and political development, while endeavouring to reduce social inequalities, so that economic growth is more fairly distributed".
Three priority forms of intervention have been selected: 1) Firstly: the strengthening of the partnership between the civil society networks of the EU and Latin America. This aim will be pursued by launching new programmes: - @lis for the promotion of the information society (EUR 67.5 million); - Alßan for opening European universities to 3900 students and researchers from Latin America (EUR 88 million for the period 2002-2010), and the continuation of existing programmes (URB-AL, links between European and Latin American local authorities); - ATLAS, a project for supporting relations between the Chambers of Commerce of the two regions (EUR 6 million); - AL-Invest: promotion of trade and investment (EUR 40 million); - ALFA: cooperation between universities (27 million); 2) Secondly: Reduction of social inequalities. The aim of this initiative (with budget of EUR 30 million) is to improve the capacity of Latin American administrations to develop social policies and to fight against exclusion; 3) Thirdly: strengthening natural disaster prevention and preparedness and ensuring the rapid implementation of rehabilitation and reconstruction operations (EUR 40 million). This will be accompanied by the development of an observatory of EU/Latin America relations (EUR 1.5 million). Finally, the creation of a network of administrations responsible for the sustainable management of energy is planned for 2005/06 (EUR 20 million).