The summit of leaders of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be held on July 17 and 18 in Brussels, the two blocs announced in a joint communiqué.
The announcement was made official coinciding with the visit to Argentina of the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, where he participated in a CELAC meeting and held meetings with the presidents of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as well as the temporary president of CELAC, the president of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves.
The July meeting will kick off the Spanish presidency of the EU and will serve to resume contact at the highest level with South America and the Caribbean, a region with which the EU has not held a summit since 2015.
The format and participants in the event remain to be seen, although during a visit to the region last October, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, defended including Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba in the future summit. despite recognizing that relations with some countries in the area are «difficult». «There are clear differences with some countries and governments, should that lead us to not want to sit down and share table and tablecloth with them? No, I don’t think that would help,» he said at the time.
According to the communiqué, the summit will put the focus on strengthening the bi-regional partnership of the EU and CELAC countries with shared priorities such as digital and green transitions, the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss, health, food security, migration, security and governance, in addition to the fight against transnational crime.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
