A very important and ambitious partnership is the one between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). A partnership that when put together makes up over a quarter of the world’s GDP, 58 states and a population of over one billion.

Since the 1960s, the European Union has been working and building on bilateral relations which European countries had with Central America. With a full range of cooperation agreements, the European Union is the leading donor in the region, the biggest foreign investor and the second most important trade partner.

To keep these relations strong, biannual summits are held between the heads of state and government of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union, that alternatively take place in both regions.

A key forum that strengthened the relations is the Rio Group. It was established back in 1986 and represents all Latin America as well as representatives from the Caribbean countries.

With Community assistance of about e500 million a year, the European Union is the biggest donor to Latin America. Funding projects are in place in the fields of democracy and human rights; health, education, transport; food security and sustainable rural development; institutional capacity building and the rule of law.

It is also involved in reconstruction programmes (e.g. in Central America), in technical assistance linked to trade and integration, and in regional programmes.

An evaluation carried out by the European Commission done in 2005 shows that the cooperation has brought the two regions closer together and that the social impact was considerable but still more has to be done.

For the 2007-2013 period cooperation will focus on:

• priority themes such as social cohesion and regional integration;

• targeting the greater part of poverty-reduction funds on low-income countries (including lower middle-income countries);

• carrying out targeted actions of mutual interest with upper middle-income countries;

• continuing cooperation in the area of sub-regional integration with Mercosur, the Andean Community and Central America;

• regional programmes for the Latin America on areas of strategic regional interest;

• ensuring that the resource allocation reflects the importance accorded to the region.

Various decentralised programmes have been adopted to provide economic assistance. One such project is AL-Invest.

This project is a network of operators from Europe and Latin America that work together in organising events that bring together both European and Latin American traders and firms.

This has led to good results among which distribution agreements, new ventures and invaluable information on the sector to facilitate strategic alliances.

Numerous deals worth in excess of $60 million have been concluded among which joint ventures, exchanges of technology, and long-term trading agreements. Within four to five years, more than 6,000 companies in Europe and Latin America have benefited from these contacts.

An another programme is EUROsociAL which aims to contribute to increasing the degree of social cohesion of the Latin American countries while acting on the public policies of education, health, the administration of justice, taxation and employment in order to become authentic social-cohesion vectors.

Experience-sharing between administrations of the countries of the European Union and Latin America is the principal activity of EUROsociAL. With four committees made up of technocrats from both regions, the aimed sectors are education, taxation, justice and health.

The European Union, through ECHO – the Humanitarian Aid Office of the European Union, is assisting people in Latin America that are in distress.

Since its creation in 1992, Central America has been a major zone of ECHO activity. ECHO assists the victims of armed conflicts and epidemics and brings relief to those hit by the earthquakes, tropical storms and floods that pose a constant threat in the region.

Such examples as Hurricane Mitch (1998) and the earthquakes that hit El Salvador in 2001 for which ECHO provided about e64 million.

ECHO is also present in other South American countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, where natural catastrophes are recurrent. ECHO provides assistance on an ad hoc basis to the most vulnerable people and finances disaster preparedness activities.

These programmes are opening opportunities for cooperation and trade relations for both Latin America and the European Union member states. These relations will be beneficial to people from both regions.

Malta as a member state of the EU will also benefit from these relations and we have to start considering expanding our relations with this region.

David Casa is a Nationalist MEP

www.davidcasa.eu

david.casa@europarl.

europa.eu