The EU and Costa Rica start the joint exercise of COVID-19 Roundtables

The European Union (EU) and Costa Rica have held the first COVID Roundtable, an exercise in dialogue to provide a joint and forceful response to the pandemic in the Central American country. The COVID Roundtable is an initiative that is included in Team Europe actions and aims to meet the specific needs of each country. Team Europe is the response that the EU and its Member States launched to combat the global impact that the pandemic is causing. In this sense, the holding of the COVID Roundtable in Costa Rica has been aimed at identifying and prioritising the immediate needs of the country and post-pandemic recovery.

The Government of Costa Rica, led by the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy, joins this exercise in dialogue, coordinated by FIIAPP, thus reinforcing its commitment to its European partners and participating in a space that enables the sharing of solutions to the pandemic’s challenges.

The first Costa Rican roundtable was held in which the consequences of COVID-19 were studied in depth and where a roadmap was drawn up to coordinate EU support. During the next few weeks an intense process of work and exchange will take place between the different actors in the Government of Costa Rica, the European Union Delegation, the Member States’ representatives in the country, the European cooperation agencies and the European(?) programmes of regional cooperation.

Costa Rica is one of the region’s countries most involved in cooperation programmes, funded by the EU and in whose management FIIAPP participates, such as EUROsociAL+, EUROCLIMA+ and EL PAcCTO. Likewise, the Central American country is a fundamental partner in areas such as the global fight against climate change. For this reason, the COVID-19 Roundtable offers a space for reinforced cooperation in the face of the pandemic, because “together, we are stronger”.

The COVID Roundtable of Costa Rica is one of the three pilot experiences that the EU has launched together with those of Argentina and Ecuador. The exercise is coordinated by two cooperation agencies, by FIIAPP in Costa Rica and Ecuador and, in Argentina, by the Italian-Latin American International Organisation (IILA).