In July 2023, the III EU-CELAC Summit marked a milestone after more than eight years without a high-level meeting between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean. This meeting brought together Heads of State and Government from more than 60 countries of the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), together with the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission, with the aim of strengthening the Bi-regional Strategic Partnership.

Reconnecting Europe and Latin America

The summit was a turning point for several reasons. For the first time, a structured dialogue was established, with a permanent coordination mechanism, meetings of heads of state and government every two years and at Ministerial level in alternate years. In addition, the Global Gateway investment agenda was presented, with the objective of mobilising up to 45 billion euros by 2027 in 130 investment projects in the digital, energy, transport, health, education and research sectors. 

Beyond specific advances, the leaders reaffirmed the status of the EU and LAC as natural and preferential partners. They committed to strengthening a bi-regional partnership based on common values and interests, including the defence and promotion of multilateralism, the strengthening of economic, social and cultural ties, and institutional cooperation to address global challenges such as food insecurity, poverty and inequality.

Public technical cooperation actions transform systems and improve lives, contributing to sustainable and inclusive development in the framework of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda. In 2021, EU Foreign Ministers recognised that mobilising public expertise is a distinctive added value, representative of the European identity, and particularly useful to promote European interests and values and strengthen strategic partnerships. 

FIIAPP cooperates through different projects and programmes in a wide range of sectors, such as green agenda, digitalisation, justice, drugs, security, food, trade, youth, citizen participation, migration, employment, border management and drug trafficking, among others.

Regulatory frameworks: software required to deploy the Global Gateway 

Within the framework of the Global Gateway strategy, FIIAPP has supported the development and strengthening of policy and regulatory frameworks that are essential for the viability and sustainability of investments. These include, among others, support for the climate change law in Ecuador and El Salvador, energy efficiency regulations for light vehicles in Colombia and the energy transition policy in Cuba, the development of data protection legislation in Guatemala and the implementation of a pilot project for electric buses in the Dominican Republic, among others.

FIIAPP has also supported actions in strategic priority areas for the EU beyond Global Gateway, such as citizen security, the rule of law and social cohesion. These areas not only improve the investment climate, but are part of European identity and integration and development goals in their own right. Their external projection is essential to strengthen public institutionality, promote democratic governance and lay the foundations for sustainable and inclusive development. The promotion of a regional protocol for undercover agents in international drug trafficking investigations and the creation of two formal spaces for EU-LAC dialogue stand out: the Political Security Cycle – Latin American Committee on Internal Security (CLASI) and the Shared Political Justice Cycle between Latin America and the European Union. 

Next stop: spring 2025 

The priorities set at the III EU-CELAC Summit were also reinforced at the meeting held last September in New York between the EU and CELAC foreign ministers. There they developed the dialogue between the two regions and made progress on shared priorities ahead of the next ministerial meeting, which will take place in Brussels in the spring of 2025, and the IV EU-CELAC Summit, scheduled to take place in Colombia in the last quarter of 2025. In addition, the representations underlined the importance of maintaining a high-level political dialogue to exchange ideas on key issues of global governance, international security and stability, a fundamental part of the coordinated and joint work that the FIIAPP has been developing with Latin America and the Caribbean for more than 25 years. 

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