The High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, continued his tour of Latin America on Wednesday and participated in the closing session of the 39th period of sessions of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), held in Buenos Aires, after which he advocated strengthening the relationship between the two regions.
“Latin America is a world power in biodiversity, in renewable energy, in agricultural production and in strategic raw materials. Naturally you want to add value to this productive capacity, but to add value you need to attract technology, ensure sustainability and ensure efficient markets for exports”, argued the diplomat.
Borrell argued that “this situation” offers the region “a new opportunity to consolidate what has already been achieved and occupy new spaces in international trade.”
“The EU is already the first investor in the region and we want to further strengthen the cooperation ties between ECLAC, Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union,” said the European representative via twitter after the meeting.
Within the framework of ECLAC, Borrell met with foreign ministers such as that of Cuba, with whom advanced through social networks having talked about “cooperation, human rights and upcoming bilateral dialogues”. In addition, the EU representative announced that an EU-Cuba Joint Council could be held soon.
Conservative MEPs have repeatedly condemned Borrell’s stance towards Cuba.
Meeting with Fernandez
Before the ECLAC meeting, Borrell met with the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández.
In a statement, the European diplomat advanced that both spoke of the negotiations of the agreement with Mercosur, and highlighted “the will” that the bloc has to unravel the treaty.
In addition, the High Representative stressed that Argentina is a nation that has “very valuable” energy resources and announced that the Latin American country could provide energy to the European region, which is currently trying to stop depending on Russian gas.
“The president has encouraged me to consider building plants that allow Argentine gas to be transported to Europe. In this sense, we are working on an agreement – an energy agreement – between Europe and Argentina that will allow us, among other things, to promote renewable energies and the gas potential of energy, the gas potential of Argentina”
On the other hand, the Casa Rosada stressed that the political leaders discussed “the broad cooperation agenda that exists in various areas of work, such as joint actions against climate change, gender issues, human rights, education, culture, digitization and biotechnology”.
Borrell is scheduled to attend the third meeting of EU-CELAC Foreign Ministers on October 27. On October 28, before ending his tour of South America, the High Representative will visit the Argentine town of Bariloche in order to “launch the largest EU initiative in the field of human rights and in support of civil society”, according to an EU report.
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