On Friday, the European Commission took a significant step forward in its strategy of rapprochement with Latin America. The community club reached an agreement to modernize and expand the trade agreement with Chile. The pact opens the door to almost 100% of European exports will arrive in the South American country without customs duties and will also give the EU better access to key raw materials for the ecological and digital transition (lithium, copper) of which Chile is a major producer. Behind this agreement, there is a movement of political and geostrategic depth in the midst of the invasion of Ukraine, a war in which Europe realized that Russian history sometimes found fertile ground in the Latin region. American, where Russia and China have gained political and economic clout in recent years.

For the High Representative for EU foreign policy, Josep Borrell, it has always been a priority for strengthening relations with Latin America. Thus, this Friday, during the presentation of the agreement, which has been negotiated for five years, he expressed his joy and stressed that the agreement reached “transcends the commercial sphere”. “It’s not just that,” he added, referring to the fact that the final text, which is not yet known, includes chapters on gender equality, respect for environment, or even the possibility of a unilateral breach of it if they were breached. .“democratic principles”.

El veterano político español ha señalado que es simbólico que sea Chile el primer país con el que se cierra el Acuerdo Marco Avanzado, number oficial de esta actualización de los pacts commerciales, porque fue este país el primer latinoamericano en tener un acuerdo commercial con la UE 20 years ago. “Next year must be the year of Latin America for the EU”, he asked. On the agenda in Brussels, pending the modernization of the agreement with Mexico and the finalization by a declaration of that concluded with Mercosur — the largest trade agreement in the EU — blocked by France, which demands a commitment from Brazil against deforestation.

“Chile is one of the mayors who have proven themselves to be litio del mundo, casi el 40% del suministro mundial, el 80% de las imports europeas”, ha destacado el vicepresidente económico, Valdis Dombrovskis, en un encuentro con varios medios europeos, entre ellos EL COUNTRY. “It is very important for electric mobility and for the European objectives [medioambientales]and it is clear that we need it for the Green Deal […] and reduce dependencies. For example, we depend on Russian gas”, underlined the commissioner also for trade. The EU also needs Chinese raw materials such as rare earths.

This movement, at bottom, seeks to make a virtue of necessity. In the internal documents of the Community institutions, it is recognized that countries like Russia and especially China have gained a lot of ground and influence in the region. It is even admitted that there is a certain feeling of European withdrawal in many countries of the zone. Thus, for next year, a commercial and diplomatic offensive is being prepared in which the step taken on Friday constitutes a first important milestone. The rest, in theory, goes through negotiations with Mercosur and Mexico. And, it is also appropriate to include as an important element of this strategy the Spanish presidency of the EU, in the second half of 2023: Spain has already announced its intention to organize a summit between the EU and Latin America in course this semester.

The final stages of the agreement between Chile and the EU have been delayed, among other things, because of the priorities of Gabriel Boric’s own government, which had “informally” asked to wait for the constitutional plebiscite on September 4, while he explains to EL PAÍS, Quentin Weiler, a senior European official representing the EU in the Pacific country. “Now begins a bureaucratic process of legal verification of the text and translation of the text which will take six to nine months for it to be signed,” he adds. The forecast that they manage in Brussels is that it could be underwritten in the fall of 2023.

To avoid the problems encountered in other treaties, such as that of Central America, this agreement has two parts: a provisional part which will enter into force once ratified by Chile and by the Community institutions (Parliament and Council of the EU ) and another definitive one that will work when it has the approval of the parliaments of all EU member states. This is not the first time that an agreement of this type has encountered ratification problems because a national or even regional parliament has rejected it. This happened, for example, with the regional assembly of Wallonia (Belgium) when it vetoed CETA, the trade agreement that was finally signed with Canada in 2016.

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