Borrell calls for greater cooperation between the European Union and Latin America

The EU does not want a world divided into blocs or a “disorderly” multipolarity that generates many regional conflicts

30 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borell, has called for greater cooperation between the European Union and Latin America during the summit “Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe: recalibrating our strategic partnership” in Cartagena, Colombia, and He has attributed the decline in relations over the last decade to the problems that have arisen in Europe and to “Latin American fragmentation.”

“The Andean Cordillera can be what the Persian Gulf was in the last century”, Borrell has declared, and has assured that the world economy of the 21st century cannot be built without Latin America due to its natural resources, especially in relation to new technologies and green energy.

Borrel has set the region as an example for its low historical emissions, although he has warned that it will still be one of the areas most affected by the “global threat” of climate change.

In addition, he added that Latin America is the region with the most biodiversity in the world, and that it has one of the greatest potentials in renewable energy due to having 30 percent of all the fresh water in the world, due to its hours of sunshine, its capacity to generate all kinds of alternative energy and for owning 80 percent of the lithium reserves.

The European Union could integrate Mercosur, one of the most closed economies in the world, into international economic circuits, although Borrell believes that the agreements must be “discussed a lot” so that both parties benefit and that “it does not endanger the balance ecological”.

“The opportunity that this new summit offers us, and the Spanish Presidency, is great, and we will have to judge whether or not we have taken advantage of it”, commented the Spanish politician, who also called for “modernizing the international financial and security architecture” in which underrepresented regions such as Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia are included.

EU-LATIN AMERICA RELATIONS

The Spanish politician has carried out an analysis of the decline in relations between the EU and Latin America since 2010, that until then there was an “enormous financial flow” in the region and in which more was invested than in China, Japan, India and Russia together.

“Since 2010, on the other hand, we have lowered our sails. (…) Because new internal problems appeared in Europe, because the economic crisis of 2008 weakened us Europeans a lot, because problems came from Africa that destabilized us, because we had migratory crises , because we had Brexit, because in some countries, like Spain, there were strong political and institutional crises,” Borrell explained.

In addition, Borrell has announced that they are working with the pro tempore president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and president of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Everard Gonsalves, to prepare a meeting in Brussels next July, the first in eight years.

CHINESE APPEARANCE

He went on to say that, although Latin America has not been forgotten, the “Latin American fragmentation” and the appearance of China, which between 2000 and 2020 multiplied its investments by almost 30 percent and has become the “first or second” partner of all the countries in the region, in which it has organized even more summits than the EU and has incorporated 21 countries into the Silk Road programme.

However, he pointed out that China’s presence in the region is “overestimated” because “its rate of investment continues to be very low and the amount of its accumulated investments in all of Latin America does not reach 5 percent, and that is not a big bases to be the dominant power.

MULTIPOLAR WORLD

Regarding the changes in world geopolitics, Borrell has stated that the EU does not want a world divided into blocks or a “disorderly” multipolarity that generates many regional conflicts, and has guaranteed that the European Union will try to be “a pole”, and that it is currently facing “a war of aggression by a powerful country against its neighbour”.

“We have armed Ukraine, yes. We are not a military union, but we have to mobilize our resources, while we find a solution that stops this war,” Borrell admitted.

The High Representative has maintained that the Ukrainians are the first to want the war to end as soon as possible because they are the ones who are being bombed every day, but that “we do not want peace for the vanquished”, but that a compromise must be reached fair agreement, that respects International Law and that does not “chronify” the conflict.

“The war has short-circuited energy and food flows. Ukraine produces more than 30 million tons of food, and if you block the exit of this food, you end up using hunger as a weapon of war,” Borrell stressed.