Brussels will host the summit of leaders of the EU and Latin America on July 17 and 18

The summit of leaders of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be held on July 17 and 18 in Brussels, both blocks have announced in a joint statement.

The announcement has been made official coinciding with the visit to Argentina of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, where he has participated in a CELAC meeting and has held meetings with the presidents of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in addition to the temporary president of CELAC, the president of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves.

The July meeting will kick off the Spanish presidency of the EU and will serve to resume contact at the highest level with South America and the Caribbean, a region with which the EU has not held a summit since 2015.

The format and the participants in the meeting remain to be seen, although during a visit to the region last October, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, defended including Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba in the future summit. Despite recognizing that relations with some countries in the area are “difficult”. “There are clear differences with some countries and governments, should that lead us not to want to sit down and share a table and tablecloth with them? No, I think that would not help,” he said then.

According to the statement, the summit will focus on strengthening the bi-regional association of the EU and CELAC countries with shared priorities such as digital and green transitions, the fight against climate change and the loss of biodiversity, health, security food, migration, security and governance, in addition to the fight against transnational crime.

Source: dpa

(Reference image source: European Council Presidency / Europa Press)

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