European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday said Europe aspires to be "the partner of choice for Latin America and the Caribbean" as she welcomed leaders from 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries to the two-day EU-CELAC summit in Brussels.

While the EU is Latin America and the Caribbean's biggest investor, the region's largest trading partner is China. The EU's Global Gateway program has been seen as a counter to China's global investment scheme, the Belt and Road Initiative. 

The summit between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is the first since 2015, and von der Leyen said "We need our close friends to be at our side in these uncertain times."

She also promised €45 billion ($50.5 billion) in new investment for the region under the EU's Global Gateway program.

Disagreement over Ukraine statement 

Despite the fact that the summit, the first in eight years, was designed to rekindle old connections and possibly advance the stalled EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, European leaders were soon stymied by their guests' refusal to get on board with a strong condemnation of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine in the summit communique.

Host Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, opened with a plea for delegates to condemn Russia's "illegal war," saying it had, "devastating consequences for food security, energy prices and the global economy."

Michel immediately got push back from CELAC President Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who argued the summit was not the place to deal with the topic of the war in Ukraine.

"I am aware that member states of the European Union may have an understandable preoccupation with the situation in Ukraine," said Gonsalves, "but this summit ought not to become another unhelpful battleground for discourses on this matter, which has been and continues to be addressed in other more relevant forums."

Instead, Gonsalves broached the topic of reparations and Europe's role in the slave trade, saying he hoped the communique would address, "historical legacies of native genocide and enslavement of African bodies and something towards reparatory justice."

Other leaders, specifically Brazilian President Lula, framed the war in Ukraine as a failure of international diplomacy rather than an act of unilateral aggression on the part of the Kremlin.

Lula, who has frustrated EU leaders for his lack of willingness to condemn Putin and criticized the West for supplying arms to Ukraine, said, "The race for weapons makes tackling [issues like] climate change even more difficult."

Mercosur, a main point of the summit, gets short shrift

One of the main objectives of the summit was to address issues with the proposed 2019 EU-Mercosur free trade agreement.

Although the deal , proposed between the EU, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, was largely agreed to at the time, it has languished since 2019, with several EU countries refusing to ratify it over environmental concerns — above all, regarding deforestation in the Amazon as well as agricultural competition.

The EU's so-called Green Deal, for instance, adopted in 2022, holds that trade deals must adhere to strict environmental standards.    

Brazil, especially, has pushed back on EU demands. "The defense of environmental values, which we all share, cannot be an excuse for protectionism," said Brazilian President Lula, who argued that his people deserved to enjoy economic development.

The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told reporters Monday that he did not "expect a big breakthrough" on closing the deal at the summit. 

A senior Spanish diplomat told reporters in Brussels that EU-CELAC "will be a political summit, not a negotiating summit."

js/wmr (AFP, Reuters)