Colombia To Host 2025 CELAC-EU Summit

Colombia will host the summit between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU) in 2025. That year, the Colombians will chair CELAC, and this week delegates from the two organizations agreed in Honduras on basic points for next year’s summit: global peace and the green agenda.

The meeting in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, included countries in the expanded CELAC group of countries (Colombia, Honduras, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Guyana) and the deputy director general for the Americas of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Pelayo Castro. The preliminary result was the launch of the CELAC-EU coordination mechanism, showing a firm commitment to bi-regional integration.

The goal of the Americans and Europeans is to build on the success of the last bilateral meeting, held in July 2023 in Brussels, Belgium, after a few years of estrangement due to disagreements on both sides of the Atlantic.

The CELAC-EU Summit of Colombia 2025 defines its agenda

A fair green transition is the guiding principle Colombia is promoting as it moves toward the presidency of CELAC in 2025. President Petro has entrusted this mandate to Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who must translate it into concrete initiatives.

These initiatives include paving the way for the construction of the interconnected electric power grid; promoting the manufacture of medicines, leveraging the proposal of the LAC-EU Alliance’s for vaccine production and health system resilience; and laying the foundations for a Latin American rail network and clean energy public transport lines.

The Colombian government, a standard-bearer of a decarbonized economy, highlighted the issues guiding its current agenda and that will continue to be a priority during its pro tempore presidency of CELAC in 2025. These issues are of utmost importance for the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and the EU.

The renewed commitment demonstrated at this meeting by the represetative countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and the EU highlights the importance and potential of bi-regional relations to foster cooperation, development and collective well-being.

CELAC-EU Summit, an instrument for strengthening relations

Meetings between CELAC and the EU began in the 1990s to strengthen relations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The last summit in Brussels in 2023 was the first since 2015. Lack of harmony between the leaders of the two regions, marked by political and economic disagreements for much of the past decade, had been a major obstacle to holding such a summit.

Although some of discrepancies persist on sensitive issues, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the “historical reparations” claimed by some Latin American governments from European countries for their role during the colonial period, the agreements reached a good point in the last meeting. Thus, last year’s meeting in Brussels was the summit for the recovery of concrete strategies.

According to Gaspard Estrada, a political scientist at Sciences Po (France) specializing in Latin America, the growth of China’s presence in Latin America over the last 20 years is mainly due to its affirmation as a preferential trading partner for many countries in the region, particularly in South America. In response, the United States has tried to reverse this dynamic, so far without much success.

European investments for green and digital transitions in Latin America

Forty-five billion in investments will be made until 2027, either through the EU’s Global Gateway initiative or disbursements by its member states, financial, and development institutions. These donations will promote a fairer and more inclusive green and digital transition in Latin American and Caribbean cities.

Estrada stresses the importance of this initiative, given that these are two of the most urbanized regions on the planet, with rates of 74 percent and 81 percent, respectively.

In financial matters, Latin American development banks, particularly the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), in alliance with large community institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB), are presenting initiatives to finance biodiversity protection and the fight against climate change.

In this regard, Colombian President Gustavo Petro‘s proposal to swap foreign debt for climate action, within the framework of the 2030 Agenda, was approved.

Sustaining the success of the 2023 summit

The objective of the political representatives is clear: maintain the success of the 2023 summit. The emergence of politicians such as Javier Milei in Argentina, who do not value regional integration mechanisms, and the differences between nations, such as the dispute between Ecuador and Mexico over the assault by Ecuadorian police on the Mexican embassy in Quito, pose major challenges.

Additionally, the uncertainty regarding the growth of far-right forces in the European Parliament elections in June, as predicted by all polls, adds further uncertainty in Europe due to these parties’ Euroscepticism.

The stated goal of the EU and CELAC leaders for the Colombia summit in 2025 will be to maintain the level of agreements reached in Brussels last year.