From Brussels to Santa Marta: The Challenges of the IV EU–CELAC Summit in an uncertain world
- Jorge Damián Rodríguez Díaz
- Sep 3
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 4
This blog post presents and elaborates on arguments analysed in Rodríguez, J. D. (2025). The Interregional Relationship between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean in Times of Uncertainty: Geoeconomic Reconfiguration and Trade Disputes, in Informe Iberoamérica 2025, Fundación Alternativa, Spain. Available at: https://fundacionalternativas.org/publicaciones/informe-iberoamerica-2025/
The relationship between the European Union (EU),Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is rooted in historical, socioeconomic, and cultural ties, as well as shared values and interests. Since the 1990s, within the framework of the EU’s interregional strategy, this partnership has acquired a multidimensional character, combining cooperation, political dialogue, and trade agreements. Currently, the EU maintains agreements with 25 countries in the region- which will increase to 29 with the entry into force of the agreement with Mercosur- and is one of its main investors. Recent initiatives, such as the Global Gateway programme, aim to promote green and digital investments, reinforcing the strategic dimension of the relationship.
However, this relationship has gone through alternating phases of dynamism and stagnation, shaped both by structural factors and political circumstances in both regions. In an international context marked by hegemonic rivalry, geoeconomic reconfiguration, and the “three transitions”- digital, ecological, and inclusive- the challenge is to redefine the biregional partnership so that it responds to new demands for development and global governance. Against this backdrop, the IV EU–Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit will be held in November 2025 in Santa Marta, Colombia, bringing together European, Latin American, and Caribbean leaders to strengthen biregional relations.
Between 2023 and 2025, the EU accelerated its strategy towards LAC, recognising the region’s key role in the supply of critical minerals and in the energy transition. During this period, the agreements with Chile and Mexico were modernised, and an Association Agreement with Mercosur-different from the 2019 version - was reached in principle, aligning these processes with the Global Gateway initiative as a framework for investment and cooperation. Preparations for the Santa Marta Summit build on these recent milestones, as well as on the outcomes of the 2023 Brussels Summit and the 2025 ministerial meeting in Seville, with the aim of arriving with concrete announcements on renewable energy, electric mobility, sargassum management, the expansion of the BELLA cable, and local vaccine production, supported by the European Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and CAF.
This roadmap rests on the strategic complementarity between the two regions- LAC holds 60% of the world’s biodiversity, generates 30% of its energy from renewable sources, and represents a market of 650 million people- and projects the partnership as a pillar for addressing global challenges by combining economic interests, sustainability, and social cohesion.
Geopolitical and geoeconomic context of the IV EU–CELAC Summit
The current biregional context is framed within a structural crisis of the international system, marked by the rise of protectionism, geopolitical tensions, and challenges to globalisation. This “interregnum,” in Antonio Gramsci’s terms, reflects a scenario of instability in which both the slowdown or reconfiguration of globalisation and the coercive use of economic interdependence coexist.
Competition between the United States and China over strategic sectors linked to the transition to a sustainable economy - together with the war in Ukraine, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the protectionist turn in developed countries - has given rise to economic security policies, industrial subsidies, and the unilateral increase in tariffs. In this context, the EU promotes its concept of “open strategic autonomy,” combining the defence of a rules-based international trade system with the capacity to reduce critical dependencies and ensure supply in strategic sectors. For Latin America, this scenario entails both challenges and opportunities: while the region seeks to reindustrialise in green and digital approaches, structural weaknesses, low levels of FDI, and political fragmentation persist.
Despite being a traditional EU partner, the relationship with LAC experienced prolonged stagnation between 2015 and 2023, aggravated by the absence of summits and the growing influence of China and Russia. The 2023 Brussels Summit reopened dialogue, stressing the need to strengthen strategic autonomy. However, Trump’s second term from January 2025 - with new unilateral measures - has exacerbated the fragmentation of global trade. In this context, the Santa Marta Summit faces the challenge of redefining the biregional relationship to respond to an increasingly uncertain, competitive, and geoeconomically segmented international scenario.
The EU’s geoeconomic relaunch with LAC: strategic agreements and the road to Santa Marta
The context described has led the EU to accelerate its strategy to strengthen ties with LAC as a strategic partner in the face of growing protectionism and global geoeconomic competition. As noted, the region is key to Europe’s energy transition due to its role in producing critical minerals. From 2023 onwards, a biregional relaunch took place, allowing progress in strategic agreements, including the modernisation of the Association Agreements. Aligned with the Global Gateway initiative, these agreements seek to establish lasting partnerships integrating trade, investment, and cooperation in strategic areas such as energy, security, and sustainable value chains.
This relaunch not only responds to the EU's need to diversify suppliers and secure strategic inputs, but also to a political window of opportunity to reposition the EU–LAC relationship in the face of China’s rise and U.S. political volatility. Looking towards the IV Santa Marta Summit, these advances provide a concrete basis for revitalising the biregional agenda, but they also raise questions about their ability to translate into productive and developmental benefits for LAC. The challenge will be to consolidate tangible agreements in the context of trade tensions, fragmented global trade, and competition for control of green value chains, seeking a balance between the EU’s strategic interests and the region’s development priorities.
Final reflections
The IV EU–CELAC Summit, to be held in Santa Marta in November 2025, will take place at a time when the biregional alliance can no longer be merely declarative. The convergence of structural crises requires revitalising the EU–LAC strategic partnership as a space capable of delivering results in sustainable development, productive diversification, and social cohesion.
For the EU, deepening ties with LAC is a way to strengthen its strategic autonomy and secure critical resources for its energy transition. For LAC, by contrast, the challenge is to seize this moment to advance green and digital industrialisation, avoiding productive reprimarisation and technological dependence. The success of the summit will depend on the ability of both regions to identify shared interests, align strategies with long-term development goals, and establish mechanisms that transcend political cycles and yield tangible benefits for both sides.
Ultimately, the Santa Marta Summit offers a new window of opportunity for the EU–CELAC relationship to become a renewed biregional partnership-capable of responding to a fragmented and uncertain international system, and of placing people and sustainable development at the centre of its agenda.
Jorge Damián Rodríguez Díaz is a lecturer and researcher at the Programme of International Studies, University of the Republic (Uruguay). He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Complutense University of Madrid. His research focuses on critical international political economy, particularly the relationship between regional integration processes and productive sectors, as well as the role of transnational corporations in globalization. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on regionalism, Mercosur, globalization, and international cooperation, and has published widely on EU–Mercosur relations, international political economy, and Latin American regionalism.
The opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the EULAS Network.