A New Agenda to Relaunch Relations Between the European Union and Latin America. What Are the Implications of the EU-CELAC Summit for Global Health?

Representatives of the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) met recently at the EU-CELAC summit in Brussels on 17-18 July. The summit was seen as a key moment to launch a new agenda for relations between the two regions, a point of departure for a new phase following an eight-year hiatus in bi-regional meetings at the highest political level.

[This report was written by Virginia Rodríguez, Advocacy Project Manager at ISGlobal; Leire Pajín, ISGlobal’s Global Development Director; and Alberto Rocamora, Advocacy Advisor at ISGlobal.]

The EU and CELAC have agreed on a new framework for bi-regional relations, which has much greater potential for transformation than might appear at first sight. ‘Deep concern about the ongoing war against Ukraine’ was the news about the summit that grabbed headlines in the international media, and Spain’s general election on 23 July meant that little attention was paid to the summit in this country despite the fact that Spain was responsible for the meeting as the current holder, starting 1 July, of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. However, the summit produced several important outcomes that deserve to be considered and analysed. 

A Fresh Look at the Region

The European Union recognises the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as key partners in today’s challenging global context, in which all the world’s regions are realigning their industrial capacities and strengthening their strategic independence. We live in a world that is, at once, deeply interconnected but also exposed to threats that require us to redefine existing relations between regions. Historically, relations with Latin America are a key component of Spanish and Portuguese foreign policy, and this was the lens through which the Spanish Presidency’s programme has viewed the relationship. Spain and Portugal have, for years, stressed the need for the EU to reassess its relationship with the region to provide an up-to-date basis for a strategic partnership. The urgent need for such an update was underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a particularly severe impact on Latin America, and also by the climate emergency. The existence of both these threats clearly demonstrates the need for profound global transformations to address them. An analysis of the summit from a global health perspective reveals the opportunities and challenges of the commitments undertaken in a complex and changing geopolitical context.

Source: European Commission.

Three Reflections on the EU-CELAC Summit

1. Commitment at the Highest Political Level

The first important point about this summit is the willingness of both regions to make a firm commitment to the new agenda at the highest political level. The participants agreed to hold summits every two years and to set up a permanent coordination mechanism to organise the meetings and to follow-up on the agreements reached. This commitment is essential in that it recognises the need for greater care and attention to relations between the two regions than has been afforded in the past. It also highlights the participants’ commitment to a rule-based, multilateral international order, shared principles and common agendas.

The summit acknowledged the role played in the bi-regional dialogue by the EU-LAC Foundation and reaffirmed shared international reference frameworks, placing the emphasis—when describing these—on people, inclusivity and fairness in the transformation processes that must be accelerated, particularly in the areas of research, environmental protection and digital transformation.  

2. Confirming and Implementing Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean

The second important outcome of the summit is agreement on how investment in Latin America and the Caribbean will be channelled though the Global Gateway. The Global Gateway is the EU's strategy for repositioning itself on the international stage through investment in key global development sectors. However, it is more than just development cooperation, although it is based on the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument  (NDICI) and the planning, partnership and implementation mechanisms of cooperation, like those of the Team Europe Initiatives. The Global Gateway goes further by incorporating policy areas, such as science and energy, through budgetary contributions from some of its own programmes (for example, Horizon) and by involving financial institutions and the private sector to complement institutional efforts.

The summit has endorsed the creation of a common investment agenda within the framework of the Global Gateway that will focus on priority issues for both regions, with the aim of mobilising all possible public funding and private investment for sustainable development, including digital transformation, education, health infrastructures, energy production, environmental perspectives, raw materials and local value chains. The European Union has pledged to contribute €45 billion by 2027, of which the Spanish government will contribute €9.4 billion through Team Europe.

3. Defining a Common Agenda in Global Health Projects and Initiatives

The third significant aspect of the summit is how this common agenda is translated into projects and initiatives directly connected to global health. Lessons from the case of the pandemic in Latin America have shown that growing inequality is a threat that urgently needs to be addressed globally, inter-regionally, and within individual countries.

Final Declaration of the EU-CELAC Summit

The final declaration of the summit stresses the importance of international cooperation in the post-pandemic period in order to “promote sustainable development, with particular emphasis on addressing structural gaps in infrastructure, productivity, social, environmental and institutional issues, as well as on disaster risk preparedness and risk management”. The declaration also expresses support for the CELAC Plan on Health Self-Sufficiency, approved in September 2021. This plan provides a framework for progress towards the local manufacture of vaccines, medicines and other health technologies and for strengthening the resilience of health systems to improve preparedness for and response to public health emergencies. It is important to highlight the value of the precedent set in the field of health by the Ibero-American Summits, which have launched various initiatives, including the Ibero-American Epidemiological Observatory and a regional programme for addressing the problem of Chagas disease.

These three important reflections on the summit underscore a single shared purpose:  the resolve to move forward to a new stage of inter-regional relations. In this new phase, the partners will configure the instruments and funding strategies that will underpin the joint initiatives and projects designed to implement urgently needed global transformations. While not the headline we saw associated with the EU-CELAC summit in the media, this is, nevertheless, the best news for the future.