BUENOS AIRES (HPD) — Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean must unite to face adversity in a world headed toward recession because of the war between Russia and Ukraine, European Union High Representative Josep Borrell said Thursday. for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, during a summit of ministers from both regions held in Buenos Aires.
Borrell warned that the global crisis will make it difficult to achieve the sustainable development goals for 2030, that democracies are being threatened “both from within and from abroad” and that the climate emergency is intensifying during the opening of the III Summit of Ministers and Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU).
The meeting was attended by the Argentine president Alberto Fernández -temporary president of CELAC- who warned for his part that the “gap” between the two regions “is very large”. However, he appreciated the fact that Latin America “has the resources that Europe needs” while the Americans require from the Europeans “the technology, research and science that are needed to make better use of our resources.”
At the meeting, Borrell pointed out that the shortage of fertilizers and the rise in gas, oil and food prices are the generators of more economic turmoil in Latin America and the Caribbean and of the slowdown in the bloc of 27 European nations.
“To deal with it, I think we must coordinate and support each other… The objective of this meeting is to renew our bi-regional association and put it at the service of peace and sustainable development,” urged the head of European diplomacy.
The official indicated that several paths must be followed for this: the intensification of the political dialogue between heads of state and government that “has not taken place for too long” and the modernization and culmination of “the network of trade and association agreements” in force .
“We have to work honestly to see what difficulties there are so that we can move forward in the great pending agreement that is (EU and) Mercosur,” Borrell said.
He also stressed that the bloc he represents wishes to launch an infrastructure investment program in Latin America and the Caribbean. The European Union is the first investor in the region with an accumulated stock of 800,000 million euros.
Borrell also advocated “not missing the train of the digital revolution” and dealing with climate change, for which he urged that the Latin American region manage to “build the bridge between the coal era and the era of renewable and green energy.”
Finally, the European official asked to collaborate in the promotion of democracy and human rights in this new geopolitical context.
Fernandez said in this regard that Latin America is a “zone of peace” and that we must be “very tough with the violent and the followers of hate.”
“I call for reflection on my continent. I do not want democracy or the popular verdict to be respected anywhere, or the ongoing electoral processes to be distorted,” Fernández said a few days before the second round of elections in Brazil.
Along these lines, the president affirmed, as he has done in other public forums, that Evo Morales was the victim of a coup in 2019 that prevented him from assuming the presidency of Bolivia “which he had won.” At the end of that year, Morales and other high-ranking officials resigned after a social unrest that occurred after elections that observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) considered fraudulent.
Now the former Bolivian president is head of the ruling Movement for Socialism that won the presidential elections in 2020 his political heir Luis Arce.