{"id":6037,"date":"2023-07-18T15:10:40","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T10:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=6037"},"modified":"2023-07-18T15:10:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T10:10:42","slug":"eu-hosts-latin-america-amid-rifts-over-ukraine-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/news\/eu-hosts-latin-america-amid-rifts-over-ukraine-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"EU hosts Latin America amid rifts over Ukraine, trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Brussels, July 18: The European Union hosts Latin American and Caribbean leaders at a summit, hoping to revive strained ties despite divisions over trade and Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The summit is the third between Brussels and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), but only the first since 2015, with several issues undermining closer ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We need our close friends to be at our side in these uncertain times,&#8221; European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said, welcoming Brazil&#8217;s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As EU and CELAC leaders gathered in Brussels, diplomats were struggling to agree on the wording of the final communique &#8212; with Europe pushing for a strong stance against Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean have no agreed position on the Ukraine war, however, and some would like to protect ties with Russia or seek a compromise peace deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, some CELAC delegates will push for the implementation of the 2019 EU-Mercosur trade deal, which has stalled on European concerns about deforestation and agricultural competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three years after agreeing on the deal, which liberalizes trade between the EU and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, it has yet to be ratified by several European governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some capitals had hoped that the summit, held under Spain&#8217;s tenure in the rotating presidency of the EU, would bring new momentum to the Mercosur deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But diplomats from both blocs were clear that Monday&#8217;s talks would be an arena for discussion, and no breakthrough on trade was expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A senior Spanish diplomat told reporters in Brussels that EU-CELAC &#8220;will be a political summit, not a negotiating summit&#8221;.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels, July 18: The European Union hosts Latin American and Caribbean leaders at a summit, hoping to revive strained ties despite divisions over trade and Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. The summit is the third between Brussels and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), but only the first since 2015, with several issues [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,2,342,2621,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-politics","category-russia","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}