Relaţiile dintre Uniunea Europeană şi America Latină la începutul secolului al XXI-lea
Relations between the EU and Latin America at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Summary/Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to reflect upon a number of points, in the context of the clear relevance of those statements by the EU’s foreign policy spokesmen: the rapid reduction of the distance between EU and Latin America; the final reconciliation; a permanent association, which resonate far beyond mere pious intentions or rhetorical flourishes. It is not just a matter of our strong historical and cultural ties or our essential shared values – nor even of the fact that there has recently been a considerable strengthening of economic and trade relations. This article tries to give a brief, factual presentation of the richness of the partnership between the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, its background and recent developments. It is focusing on the main aspects of the strategic partnership and how it has developed, and describes the political, trade and cooperation relations between the EU and each sub-region. What is at stake is something more crucial, which concerns the future more than the past or the present: in today’s world of breakneck globalization and growing interdependence, the challenges and problems of Europe and Latin America are, swiftly and inevitably, coming to exhibit an ever more closely shared and interdependent agenda. If our past has created close links between us, the future will bind us together even more tightly. Naturally, in a large number of key areas, this ‘shared agenda’ goes beyond our regional frameworks to involve the international community as a whole. From the numerous analyses, reports, remarks and declarations which have proliferated in the wake of the just-concluded Iraq war (and of the 11 September, before that), two conclusions may be extracted as the object of a near-universal consensus: the world has crossed the threshold of a new era, and this epochal change is going to affect everybody.

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