Leaders of the EU and Celac spoke of a “historic” and “successful” meeting, although the agreement between the blocs has not yet materialized.
The leaders’ summit Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union, in which he participated President Luis Lacalle Pou and where Uruguay managed to close an agreement for green hydrogen, ended with a close up between both blocks, but without specifying the signature of the trade agreement.
Although the leaders spoke of a “historic” and “successful” meeting, where they promised to relaunch the political and economic relationship between the parties, after eight years without meetings at the highest level. During his speech at the event, Lacalle Pou conveyed a message in favor of a soon agreement and expressed: “Enough of words.”
Despite not materializing the agreement between the blocks, the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, He considered that “it was an excellent summit” and even assured that “it felt like a new beginning for old friends.” “We need each other. These are times of great geopolitical changes. And like-minded friends like us must stick together,” said the European benchmark at the press conference.
Meanwhile, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, called the meeting a “political success” and said that the 60 countries that participated were “absolutely convinced that we do not have to wait eight years again to meet.”
Meanwhile, the “pro tempore” president of Celac, Ralph Gonsalves, rated the summit as “historical” and considered that the relationship with the Europeans is “stronger today than yesterday or the day before yesterday”. The only “blemish” on the final agreement was from Nicaragua, an ally of Russia, that it refused to accept the paragraph in which the EU and Celac expressed their “deep concern for the ongoing war against Ukraine”.
There will be investments while the negotiations for the Mercosur-EU agreement continue
Among the investments, the European Commission announced that Member States will invest 45,000 million euros in the region until 2027 through its program Global Gateway. At the same time, they valued the “efforts” of Mercosur to ratify the agreement, although from the Eurochamber, countries like Austria, France or Ireland they ask the Latin American partners for greater environmental protection.
“We are not prepared today for a signature, This is what we have all found. The negotiators must continue working,” he said after the conference French President Emmanuel Macron who highlighted the relationship of “I respect” mutual between both blocks.
Source: Ambito
