The invasion of Ukraine, the stranglehold at the meeting of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States

Rotating Chair (temporarily) of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Ralph Gonsalves said that the summit is between this region and the European Union which takes place in Brussels It should not become “another useless battleground” over condemnation of the war in Ukraine.

EU member states may have understandable concerns about the situation in Ukraine, however This summit should not become another useless battleground for words on this issuewhich has been and continues to be addressed in other, more relevant forums,” Gonsalves said opening the meeting, according to the EFE report.

The meeting began on Monday without a consensus on condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, given the diverging views on the war among the countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

In UN General Assembly resolutions on the war in Ukraine, Nicaragua voted against condemning the conflict; Bolivia, Cuba and El Salvador abstained, and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean voted in favor of the resolution.

Gonsalves called on Kiev and Moscow for “mature diplomacy” to reach an “effective solution”. of the conflict “even if it is not entirely satisfactory (…), it is at least the result of an agreed dissatisfaction”.

“Ukraine is not the only theater of operations or armed conflict wreaking havoc on people and destroying lives and livelihoods. In addition to the immediacy of the battlefields (…) Haitian people and Palestinian populations across Africa, the Middle East and Asia face even more immediate challenges.Gonçalves continued to equate the conflicts with completely different reasons than the Russian invasion of the neighboring country.

Gonsalves, who is also the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, added that because of the war in Ukraine, “the global economy is also bleeding needlessly (…) through higher food prices, higher oil prices and higher loans”.

Besides condemning the war in Ukraine, Gonsalves called for the solution of other “contemporary challenges of an existential kind”.Such as climate change, epidemics, poverty and food insecurity.

or “a multitude of injustices, including the historical legacies found in the genocide and slavery of the indigenous population,” he concluded.

Those positions are already filled Moscow, whose influence reaches the summit of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States directly through its close allies in the Latin American region.

according to Official site SputnikAnd A symptom of the fragility of relations between the 27 and 33 countries that make up the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is that not all of them attend the meeting with representatives at the highest level. The foreign policy directors are represented by Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala and Saint Lucia, while Panama and Venezuela participate through their vice-presidents.

Augusto Zamora, a former Nicaraguan diplomat and university professor of public international law and international relations at the Universidade Autonoma Metropolitana (UAM), told this medium that there is a “lowering of the limelight” of the various delegations and that the summit is being held in “bad”. It’s time for the European Union.”

Because now the European Union is the Dr. Jekyll of NATO, because Ukraine occupies all of its international agenda. This is an agenda that Latin America has rejected.”

A juicio of Zamora, with the agenda of the UE quiere “utilizar” la cumbre para atraer a los países de la CELAC a las políticas europeas de sanciones contra Moscú y de envío de armas a Ucrania, así como “demostrar el aislamiento de Rusia” en the world.

“But what has been revealed is that the isolated are the Europeans. In this sense, the summit represents a stumbling block for the European Union,” he said.

Zamora indicated that Spain, which holds the semi-annual rotating presidency of the Council of Europe, supported the presence of Volodymyr Zelensky at the meeting, which was objected to by the Cuban and Nicaraguan regimes.

The European Union wants to show that Latin America is with it, but this is not the case, because its main trading partner is ChinaRussia is an important military and political partner.

At the meeting, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is expected to announce the signing of several loans worth €800 million to finance climate action projects in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. There is also an attempt to boost trade agreements with Chile, Mexico and Mercosur.

In addition, Brussels is negotiating lithium extraction in Chile, and under the name Global Gateway, the European Commission has announced a plan to allocate more than 45,000 million euros in “smart” investments for Latin America and the Caribbean.

“I do not see how it is possible to reach a common agreement between the two blocs.”announced to Sputnik Economist and author Santiago Nino calfProfessor Emeritus of Economic Structure at Ramon Lull University, Barcelona.

He warned that “the productivity of most EU countries is much higher than that of almost all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and their purchasing power is less or much lower than that of a large part of the EU.” However, any exchange must be “evaluated”, even if “many metric tons of Ecuadorian bananas” must be added to the import of machinery and high technology.

“But the political moments of all the countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States do not coincide, further muddying the agreement,” he added. Brazil and other countries have already said they do not want to reach “neo-colonial” agreements.

Augusto Zamora added, “The agreement between Mercosur and the European Union is not possible in principle, because Mercosur represents an export market, while the European Union is protectionist in nature, and therefore economic interests are increasingly distant.”

“There will be no major agreements,” said the analyst, who believes that the positions of the two blocs oppose each other. They will not leave room for a great corporate message. “The same EU sources say there won’t even be a joint statement.”

“The lines are hostile. The line that the EU defends is anti-Chinese, but China is Latin America’s main trading partner. There has never been more distance between the EU and Latin America than now. So, the summit is stillborn, and it will not do anything of substance The positions are very far apart.