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The EU wants to revive relations with Latin America at a summit with the region’s presidents next week, but delays to trade deals and a rift over the Ukraine war have underlined their political differences after eight years without a top-level meeting.
Concerned by China’s growing economic power in one of the world’s biggest commodity-exporting regions, and keen to secure supplies of critical minerals, the EU wants to convince Latin American and Caribbean leaders that the two blocs are natural partners.
But a key trade deal between the EU and the South American Mercosur bloc remains stalled and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not address the two-day event. Although he has appeared at recent forums from the Arab League to Nato’s summit, some Latin American nations blocked the idea of inviting him to speak in Brussels.
Brazil and Mexico favour a more neutral position on the Ukraine war, while Cuba and Venezuela are close allies of Moscow. Many governments in the region would prefer to see Europe push harder for peace talks instead of supplying more weapons to Kyiv.
During awkward pre-summit discussions, some Latin American nations sought the removal of wording from a draft text condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tried to add a demand for reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, moves one EU diplomat described as “provocative”.
Monday’s gathering comes a month after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen toured Latin America, meeting the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Chile. She pledged more funding from Europe’s infrastructure programme Global Gateway — though the sums are dwarfed by the scale of Chinese loans to the region. “Europe is back in Latin America,” she announced.
Latin American nations have welcomed Europe’s increased attention but expressed concern that the initial summit agenda appeared tailored to Old World interests such as securing critical minerals rather than addressing their big issues, like poverty and inequality.
“There’s something rather naive and arrogant about saying ‘We will pay you attention now because we’ve suddenly discovered we need friends and want to project power’,” said one senior diplomat from the region.
EU diplomats conceded preparations for the summit had not been easy but said they remained optimistic. “The level of attendance by Latin American leaders will be very good and the dialogue has been positive,” one senior official said. European diplomats said they hope to set up similar meetings every two years, enabling more regular top-level discussions on trade, climate and development.
A second EU diplomat said von der Leyen’s visit to Latin America had created a “good mood” and that a trade deal with Chile, agreed last year, will soon be sent to member states for ratification.
But few expect a breakthrough next week in the EU-Mercosur trade agreement. The pact, signed in 2019 after two decades of negotiations, has not been ratified as EU member states raised concerns that it could fuel deforestation.
Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated last week that additional environmental demands on Mercosur, led by France, were “unacceptable” because they would impose sanctions on Mercosur countries which did not abide by climate commitments. Argentina has backed his position.
“The agreement must be based on trust, not on the presumption of mistrust,” Celso Amorim, Lula’s top foreign policy adviser told a Chatham House webinar on Thursday. “This is not a good faith proposal. The way it was presented is totally inappropriate.”
Trade groups Business Europe and the Brazilian Confederation of Industry have warned meanwhile that India and South Korea overtook Brazil in the past two decades in the EU’s list of top trading partners, while the EU has gone from being Brazil’s biggest trading partner to its third largest.
“For us, a successful summit is one that delivers free trade agreements,” said Eleonora Catella, deputy director of international relations at Business Europe.
Despite the EU’s stated desire to bolster relations, some of its proposals lack economic weight. At the summit, a list of about 100 Global Gateway projects will be touted, the senior EU official said, but many still lack funding.
During last month’s visit, Von der Leyen raised the EU’s pledge of grants and loans from €6bn to €10bn for 2021-2027. But this pales beside the €150bn dedicated to Africa under the scheme. China meanwhile made development finance loans totalling $136bn to Latin America and the Caribbean from 2005 to 2022.
Some leaders invited may also prove problematic for the EU. Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has presided over the jailing of hundreds of opposition activists, is likely to attend, diplomats said. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, is not expected to come.
More than 170 Nicaraguan opposition activists and civil society groups on Friday called on presidents taking part in the Brussels summit to discuss the dramatic deterioration of human rights in Nicaragua, where president Daniel Ortega has jailed, tortured and expelled opponents.
Cuba and Venezuela have publicly denounced the EU for “manipulative behaviour and a lack of transparency” ahead of the summit, accusing Brussels of trying to organise parallel events without all the invited nations.
After disagreements between the EU and the 33-nation Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) over the lengthy summit text, EU states are now pushing for a leaner, less controversial document, but one that will still mention Ukraine.
But Javi López, a Spanish socialist MEP who chairs the European parliament’s delegation to the Euro-Latin American parliamentary assembly, insisted that after years of neglect, “the photo and participation is a success in itself”.
“The summit is not a port of arrival, it’s a port of departure. It’s the start of the relaunch of our relations and ties,” he added.
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