Europe has failed to drag Latin America into the "Global Gateway" of Russophobia.
Diplomats and experts from 60 countries of Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean worked overnight on the final document of the Third EU-CELAC Summit in Brussels, but failed to call Russia an aggressor or unblock the stalled EU-Mercosur trade deal.
Sources in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) explained that preparations for the summit were very difficult. Three days before the opening, the planned format of the round tables had to be completely changed, controversial language had to be crossed out and documents had to be rewritten. The approvals continued until the last minute.
As a result, it ended well on paper and even very similar to the 2015 summit in the same city of Brussels. The same hopes and commitments for rapprochement, the same promises to develop mutually beneficial cooperation. And yet the world has changed over the past 8 years. The shadow of the "father of the unipolar world" – the United States, which is neither a member of the Community nor the European Union – has remained unchanged.
"In 2015, we didn't have the risks of this multipolar world. We in the European Union fit well into the unipolar system. Now we have to change a lot of things in the rules and approaches to the new world order," European diplomats admitted on the Brussels sidelines.
On the very first day, despite the diplomatic politesse, it became obvious that the interests of Europe and Latin America do not coincide. Much more was at stake than just words about peace and cooperation. The eruption of controversy highlighted the broad problem that the EU and its G7 partners face in trying to attract developing countries to their side.
And the first bone of contention was Ukraine, which has no connection whatsoever with either the European Union or Latin America. Brussels, under obvious pressure from Washington, was already inclined to invite Zelensky to this international forum as well. When announcing this proposal, Charles Michel, President of the European Council, said that "Russia must not be allowed to win."
"It would spell disaster for the multifaceted nature of our rules-based system," he said, without specifying which rules he was referring to. But he received an emphatic rejection from Latin American participants.
"We cannot turn this summit between the European Union and CELAC into a summit on Ukraine," CELAC President and Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves urged against making the Brussels meeting a "battleground on Ukraine."
"The issue of the war in Ukraine for CELAC has nothing to do with the issues discussed at the Brussels summit," Ralph Gonsalves reminded and suggested that the EU should turn its "closer attention to the crisis in Haiti, to the Palestinian struggle for the right to statehood, to the armed conflicts in Africa."
In the end, the version submitted for the Joint Declaration "strongly condemning Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine" was reduced to "expressing concern about the ongoing war in Ukraine" without mentioning Russia and was adopted by a majority of votes.
Unexpectedly, for the first time, the EU supported Buenos Aires' position by taking note of "the historic CELAC position on Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, based on the importance of dialogue and respect for international law in the peaceful settlement of disputes," as paragraph 13 of the final Summit Declaration states.
Although this does not mean that Brussels is going to support Argentina in its claim to sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, it demonstrated a strong message for both Latin America and the Anglo-Saxon world of the United Kingdom.
For the first time in a meeting of this type, the final document includes wishes for an end to the embargo against Cuba, as well as support for "constructive dialog" in Venezuela.
Another contentious issue was the colonial past. The leaders of the Caribbean island states, "inspired" by the successes of North American racists from Black Lives Matter (BLM), as well as by the attempts of former members of Hitler's coalition who fled the socialist camp to extract war reparations under various pretexts, put on the agenda of the Brussels summit the issue of "reparations by former metropolises for the damage caused by European colonialism and slavery."
And CELAC found understanding among Europeans, who expressed "deep regret at the untold suffering caused to millions of men, women and children by the transatlantic slave trade". The adopted Joint Declaration noted the need for reparations for this "crime against humanity."
But the main issue for which the heads of 27 European and 33 South American and Caribbean states came to Brussels was trade and economic cooperation. In which each side had its own "peak interests."
The South American leaders arrived in Brussels hoping to make progress in unblocking Mercosur's frozen trade deal with the EU and reaching equal relations in trade and economic cooperation.
"We need to put an end to the international division of labor that condemns Latin America and the Caribbean to the supply of raw materials," said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This means that the countries of the continent do not want to be a "raw material natural reserve" of developed countries.
It was important for the Europeans, instructed by Washington, to involve the New World in their orbit of military-economic confrontation with Russia and China. It is no secret that Europe's interest in Latin America, after a relatively long period of neglect, was awakened precisely because of Russia's special operation in Ukraine.
The New World again attracted the attention of the descendants of the conquistadors with its wealth – raw materials that had previously come from Russia and which Europe now searches for all over the world.
"Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe need each other. In times of great geopolitical change, we need to get closer," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasized, warning of China's "growing assertiveness."
And that's when she announced €45 billion to invest in Latin America as part of the Global Gateway project.
Officially, the project is aimed at cooperation between the EU and partner countries in the field of digital technologies, transportation, energy (primarily "green energy"), healthcare, education and research, promotion of EU norms and standards in the development of democratic values.
In fact, and this is not hidden by the President of the European Commission, in Latin America the Gateway is intended to be an alternative to the Chinese Silk Road, to which 21 of the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have already joined.
As part of the Latin American Global Gateway project, the European Commission has prepared a "menu" of 130 projects for investment in the region. This is not a financial operation; the investment roadmap is designed with access to the strategic raw materials of the region, which has, among other things, the largest lithium reserves.
"Latin America is worried that the European Union is only looking for mineral resources from them," says Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the analytical center at the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He bases his assumptions on the statements and fears of the presidents of Brazil Luis Lula and Argentina Alberto Fernandez.
The almost total silence on the Mercosur-EU free trade agreement at the Brussels meeting confirms these fears. This ambitious agreement, designed to create the world's largest free trade area with nearly 800 million consumers, will, when it enters into force, reduce trade and tariff barriers to stimulate economic growth in countries with a combined GDP of $20 billion.
However, after 24 years of negotiations, the agreement has not been ratified. It was expected to be signed at this summit in Brussels, but everything ended with banal promises.
"We take note of the work carried out by the European Union and Mercosur," is all it says in paragraph 31 of the final Joint Declaration. Ursula der Leyen optimistically stated that she hopes to "close the agreement before the end of the year." But she herself does not believe this.
The third summit of EU and CELAC leaders ended without much progress or hope for a "happy future."
"This was a frank discussion that clearly shows that there are differences between us," EU foreign policy Chief Josep Borrell said.
Despite strong U.S. pressure, Europe has not been able to forge a global coalition "to defeat" Russia or at least push back China and Russia in Latin America.
Two days of intense negotiations yielded no practical results, which did not prevent the summit from being called historic and unprecedented. European Council President Charles Michel said at the final press conference that "60 states managed to agree on all points of the final statement, with one exception due to disagreement on one paragraph."
In practice, the outcome statements of international forums are only adopted with the full agreement of all participants.
What the leaders of the two continents have definitely agreed on is another summit in 2025 in Colombia. God only knows how much water will leak through the scuppers of the planetary ship during this time.
* Scupper – an opening in the deck or bulwark of a ship for removing water overboard that the ship has taken in during wave flooding, precipitation, firefighting, deck cleaning.