The EU and Latin America agree to strengthen their cooperation against COVID-19

USPA NEWS - Spain, together with Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Slovenia, France, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, the Dominican Republic and Sweden, with the participation of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and the EU Security Policy, Josep Borrell, have held a meeting to stimulate cooperation between both regions in order to face the pandemic and its consequences. This is the first high-level meeting between ministers from both regions since the EU Ministers' Meeting with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held in Brussels in July 2018.

The conference was an initiative of France, Spain and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. This meeting concluded with the adoption of a Declaration in which the participating countries make a call to cooperate in different initiatives within the fight against COVID-19, within their commitment to multilateralism and with a coordinated international health response, as well as to strengthen the political dialogue between both regions.

Among other initiatives, the participating countries commit to supporting production and fair and universal access to tests, treatments and vaccines; to strengthen health systems, especially in the most vulnerable countries and for the most unprotected sectors; and promoting exchanges between scientists and cooperation in medical, biological and pharmaceutical research. In addition, the countries of the EU and Latin America commit to reorient their cooperation instruments to facilitate a sustainable way out of the crisis, as well as to study measures that allow the restoration of people exchanges between both regions as soon as possible.

"Since the outbreak of this crisis, Spain has put in place a series of mechanisms to try to help Latin American countries, one of the regions that is suffering the impact of the pandemic most severely," in the words of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Arancha González Laya. "In April we opened a dialogue process with several Latin American countries, the so-called COVID-19 Dialogues, to share experiences and lessons learned and generate networks of experts," added the head of Spanish diplomacy.

Given the severity of the crisis caused by Venezuelan migration in the countries of the region, Spain also promoted the holding of a donor conference that represented a significant leap in the response of the International Community to the Venezuelan crisis. In addition, on June 24, Spain organized a virtual meeting of the Prime Minister with ten presidents from the region to help raise awareness among international financial institutions about the financing needs of Latin American countries in the context of the pandemic.

Spain welcomes the return to high-level political dialogue between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean with this Friday's meeting, and trusts that it will point the way to deepening cooperation and solidarity between the two regions.