Anna Terrón, director of the FIIAPP: “We are always pushing to intensify relations with Latin America”

“We are always pushing to intensify relations with Latin America,” Anna Terrón, Director of the FIIAPP, told the media at the Palacio de la Magdalena, after the closing of the course ‘Quo Vadis Europa? The birth of geopolitical Europe’, directed by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Over the course of five days, personalities from European and international politics and from the field of technology and communication have addressed the role of the European Union as a political actor in the world order, as well as the new challenges and strategies it faces.

Terrón, who moderated the last panel discussion of this academic event held in the context of the Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP) Summer Courses 2022, stated that the FIIAPP is “part of Spanish and European cooperation, and also part of what is being done to improve Europe’s presence in the world”. He also explained the Foundation’s role in public technical assistance to its “European partners”, but also in the work carried out in the rest of the world (Latin America, the Mediterranean and the Eastern neighbourhood), where institutional, public policy and administrative improvements are being made.

“We are looking for a stronger union in third countries, which are very important to us. For this reason, we feel part of what Josep Borrell, the common foreign service and the European Commission are advocating”, he said.

Terrón also explained that relations with Latin America have intensified: “We are among those who have always pushed for this intensification, and we have seen the clearest result in recent days with the European Union’s decision to make more and better progress in a strong relationship between Europe and Latin America. This is something that we in Spain have always advocated”.

In this respect, she added that Latin America is “our political and cultural neighbour” and, although “we may differ geographically, we share a vision of the world, and this must be reflected in a more intense relationship”, she insisted.

The director of the FIIAPP, Anna Terrón, talks to the media after the closing of the #QuoVadisEuropa course in Santander.
Terrón called on the rest of Europe to join in this “intensification” of relations with Latin America through the linguistic and cultural gateway. Something that the Spanish Vice-Presidency of the European Commission with Borrell believes “can help a great deal in 2023” so that it becomes an “important axis and yields results“. “We at the FIIAPP will certainly be there,” he added.

The closing of the course was “enormously lively and interesting” in the opinion of the director of the FIIAPP. Following on from the words of the head of European diplomacy, Terrón said that, during the closing session, there was “an academic part that linked us with the depth of the European Union’s path, led by Giorgio Anselmi, president of the European Federalist movement, and a politically vibrant part with Guy Verhofstadt, MEP and member of the RENEW Group, who thinks that Europe has to move forward more and better in order to make the necessary decisions at this time”.

Finally, Terrón highlighted “the way this course has been run, directed by Josep Borrell, whose presence in Santander and contribution to each day has made the news at different times, has been very relevant”.