European Commission strengthens alliances with Latin American allies

The president of the European Comission, Ursula von der Leyen, will begin this Monday a tour of Brazil, Argentina, Chili and Mexico to strengthen alliances before the summit that the EU and Latin American and Caribbean countries will hold in July.

The head of the executive arm of the European Union (EU) has the objective of this trip “Strengthen relations with fundamental allies”, a spokeswoman for the European Commission said on Friday.

Von der Leyen will disembark on Monday in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, where he has a meeting with the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and after a working lunch he will offer a speech before the National Confederation of Industry (CNI). .

On Tuesday, Von der Leyen will be in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for a meeting with President Alberto Fernandez, and will participate in the EU-Argentina Business Forum.

The tour will continue on Wednesday with a visit to Santiago, Chile, where he has scheduled a meeting with the first president, Gabriel Boric, and will then visit a Chilean plastic recycling company.

The last leg of the German leader’s tour will be on Thursday in Mexico, where she has a meeting with the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on the agenda.

Originally, Von der Leyen had scheduled this Latin American tour in April, but an illness of President Lula forced a trip to China to be rescheduled, and therefore the visit had to wait.

New relationship map

The visit will start a week after the European Commission approved a New Agenda for “recalibrate and renew” the relations of the European bloc with the countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

This agenda, launched before the EU-CELAC Summit scheduled for July, calls for regular meetings between the leaders of the two blocs and the adoption of a permanent coordination mechanism, as well as a boost to trade and investment.

According to the EU, this New Agenda, as well as Von der Leyen’s tour and the expectations of the July summit, are focused on the plan called Global Gateway, a gigantic investment program that aims to mobilize up to 300,000 million euros. .

In a brief official note, the EU reported that during his tour of the four Latin American countries, Von der Leyen “will make a series of announcements about projects under our Global Gateway strategy, which will be mutually beneficial and bring both regions even closer.”

fundamental allies

The first stop on the tour, Brazil, is an anxiously awaited step in Brussels, since during the government of Jair Bolsonaro the dialogue between the South American giant and the EU was reduced to practically zero.

Lula’s return to the presidency revived hopes for a substantial improvement in the bilateral dialogue, which Von der Leyen now hopes to consolidate.

Argentina is an essential associate of Brazil within Mercosur, the South American bloc with which the EU still hopes this year to close endless negotiations for an ambitious trade agreement.

Chile and the EU closed a modernization of their trade agreement in 2022, which must still be ratified, and Brussels is determined to move forward in the same direction as soon as possible in its agreement with Mexico.

The last summit between the EU and Latin American countries took place almost eight years ago, in 2015. Since then, the EU has focused on its internal problems, such as Brexit, the migration crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, expansion to the East and, more recently, the war in Ukraine.

Now, the EU perceives that Latin America is a natural ally, with abundant mining and food resources, and therefore Brussels was convinced that the time had come to give these relations an importance commensurate with their magnitude.

Source: AFP