CELAC–EU: an alliance to defend democracy, rights, and multilateralism in difficult times

If we had to bet on an alliance capable of defending democracy, human rights, environmental sustainability, and multilateralism in these times of global uncertainty, it would be the one that unites Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with the European Union (EU). It is not just an affinity for certain values: it is a political opportunity to defend the need to reprogram multilateralism with fairer rules, sovereignty, and real cooperation, far from subordination. That should be the aim of the Santa Marta Summit, a priority to move from discourse to a concrete and robust implementation agenda.   

But that promise coexists with contradictions that erode its transformative potential. In LAC, citizen support for democracy fell sharply over the last decade (from 63% in 2010 to 48% in 2023), and although it rebounded to 52% in 2024, the upturn does not reverse the underlying deterioration or the normalization of authoritarian outcomes. Added to this is the popularity of the “iron fist” model—with El Salvador as its emblem—and serious allegations of abuses under the state of emergency. At the same time, governments that claim a democratic legacy are seeking an effective security model that respects rights and provides a way out of the Venezuelan crisis without external interventionism. All this is taking place in a hemispheric environment in which the specter of external military intervention by the United States is resurfacing under the guise of the “war on drugs,” with operations that flagrantly violate international law and reopen the door to interventions with destabilizing effects.                   

Europe, for its part, is also struggling with its own inconsistencies: it claims to be the defender of a rules-based order, but fails to unequivocally condemn the genocide in Gaza; at the same time, it is advancing an agenda of regulatory “simplification” that, under corporate pressure, pushes for deregulation; and the strengthening of right-wing and far-right governments within the bloc has consolidated anti-migration narratives that shape the new Migration and Asylum Pact. Added to this is the fact that several recent attempts to create global rules in trade and industry “to respond to the climate crisis” have been designed without explicitly anchoring objectives to reduce inequalities between countries or expand the policy space of the Global South for its own just transition. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) illustrates this trend: it was adopted to prevent carbon leakage and equalize the cost of carbon between imports and domestic production, but it has been questioned by experts in the South and independent studies for its distributional effects and the risk of shifting costs to developing countries and narrowing their industrial and climate policy space, while the bloc fails to assume its share of responsibility in terms of climate and development financing. 

Why this alliance matters 

The sum of CELAC (33 countries) and the EU (27) forms a bloc of 60 states representing approximately one-third of the membership of the UN General Assembly, 14% of the world’s population, and 21% of global GDP. It is also a market with dense trade and investment connections: in 2022–2023 alone, the exchange of goods and services between the EU and LAC amounted to around €395 billion, and the trade architecture was reactivated with the EU–Mercosur agreement concluded in 2024 (currently in the process of ratification). These figures illustrate the size and potential of the alliance.     

At the same time, Europe has identified LAC as a strategic partner in its green transition: through Global Gateway, Team Europe committed to mobilizing more than €45 billion by 2027; and in 2025 the EU signed a memorandum with OLADE to triple renewables and double energy efficiency by 2030, aligning energy security with climate goals and technological cooperation. For the European Union, the alliance with Latin America and the Caribbean is seen as an opportunity to reduce its vulnerabilities in relation to critical minerals. For Latin America and the Caribbean, European investment is key in areas such as green transitions, with the best opportunity in relation to other blocs to create shared value chains with robust social and environmental standards.

The EU is the largest investor by stock in the region, with a position amounting to €693 billion (2021). In relative terms, this stock is equivalent to approximately 28% of total FDI located in LAC and 5.5% of the EU’s global FDI stock in 2022.

From impasse to relaunch (with our feet on the ground)

After years of bilateralism and fragmentation, the bi-regional agenda was resumed in 2023, and in 2025 the IV CELAC-EU Summit will be held in Santa Marta (November 9-10), co-chaired by Colombia and the European Council, with the participation of the European Commission. The goal is clear: to restore confidence and produce concrete results, not just communiqués. In line with this, the Summit will add two parallel spaces—the LAC-EU Business Forum and the Civil Society Forum—to catalyze quality investments and protect civic space.   

The political context is not simple. Europe is discussing its strategic autonomy and reconfiguring its relationship with major powers; LAC faces security challenges, low regional coordination, and dependence on extractive models. The realistic roadmap emerging from the pre-Summit debates speaks of three cross-cutting tasks: changing the narrative, changing relationships, and advancing concrete proposals that show how this alliance produces well-being and democracy.  

Finally, the geopolitical context adds certain risks: China maintains its sustained economic rise, which other blocs see as a threat, increasing geopolitical rivalry. In the United States, initiatives are being pursued to authorize the use of force against cartels in the region, and the executive branch has notified Congress that there is an “armed conflict” with cartels, a framework that has already been used for lethal operations in the Caribbean. Any responsible bi-regional agenda should shield security cooperation from militarized shortcuts that violate international law and regional sovereignty. 

Ambitious realism: priorities that can move the needle

A maximalist consensus is unlikely. The sensible approach is to focus priorities where LAC-EU can move the global needle today:

1. Democracy, the rule of law, and civic space. Reaffirming verifiable commitments against democratic erosion on both sides, with support for systems to protect rights, defenders, and journalists, and with accountability mechanisms linked to cooperation and responsible public procurement. In El Salvador, for example, cooperation should make security support conditional on a return to legality and an end to the state of emergency.
   

2. Defense of international humanitarian law and multilateral systems. In the face of crises such as Gaza, advance minimum common positions anchored in ICJ decisions that strengthen humanitarian missions and diplomatic channels. Repoliticizing multilateralism means making it more horizontal and less subordinate to the interests of powerful nations.
   

3. Governance of global value chains with human rights. The EU must consolidate—not cut back—its due diligence (CSDDD) and invite LAC to build a shared standard that encompasses decent work, environmental due diligence, and community participation, with accessible remedial mechanisms.
   

4. Pro-equality trade and climate rules. Ensure that instruments such as the CBAM incorporate gradualism, financial support, and technology transfer so as not to penalize the sustainable development of the South; the bi-regional agenda must propose cooperative adjustments (transition funds, recognition of equivalent efforts) and not just border adjustments.

What is being discussed in Santa Marta (and why it matters)

1) Security and drug policy: effectiveness with rights

The region demands effective security policies that do not sacrifice human rights. Cooperation must shift from the failed prohibitionist approach to drugs toward human security, prevention, harm reduction, and financial governance of crime (money, weapons, and chemical supply routes). This includes judicial and financial cooperation, traceability of precursors, control of arms diversion, drug policy focused on pursuing organized crime structures and targeting strategic points such as ports, and alternatives to mass incarceration with socioeconomic opportunities to challenge criminal organizations’ control over populations and territories. 

2) Economy, trade, and investment: Global Gateway without extractivism

The economic link exists, but raw materials are not enough. The Global Gateway agenda and PPPIs must reduce risks, promote quality investment, guarantee environmental and labor standards, and—crucially—create local value with decent employment. Cooperation should direct financing toward strategic regional projects, starting with the interconnection of electricity grids: SIEPAC (second circuit), Panama–Colombia and Ecuador–Peru links, Arco Norte integration, interconnected Caribbean, and transmission reinforcements in the Southern Cone. This integration infrastructure lowers costs, improves resilience, and enables large-scale renewables. If Europe wants to be a differentiated partner, it needs technology transfer, productive chains, and projects that industrialize LAC.   

3) Energy transition and critical minerals: diversify fairly

EU–OLADE cooperation commits to specific goals (tripling renewables, doubling efficiency). For the transition to be socially sustainable, the mining of lithium, copper, and other critical minerals must comply with due diligence, informed participation, and local benefits; and Europe, in turn, must diversify dependencies without exporting social or environmental liabilities.   

4) Bi-regional care pact: breaking down social policy barriers

Building a caring society is the bridge between equality, employment, and well-being. The bi-regional care pact—under consultation during 2025—seeks to recognize care as a right and to finance accessible, quality services, with decent work for caregivers. Making it a pillar of the Santa Marta Declaration would signal consistency between the social and investment agendas. 

5) Democracy and civic space: coherence or rhetoric

The 2023 Declaration reaffirmed the UN Charter, human rights instruments, and peaceful dispute resolution. The challenge now is to operationalize that foundation: protecting defenders, indigenous peoples, and local communities; shielding press freedom; and ensuring that security cooperation never justifies interventions that erode democracy. This includes exploring democratic conditionalities and early warning mechanisms against the closure of civic space and resisting the temptation of militarized shortcuts in security (including rejecting external interventions under the banner of anti-drug efforts). 

6) Digital and artificial intelligence: closing gaps without new extractivism

The EU-LAC Digital Alliance and the focus on AI open up opportunities to share capabilities and manage risks (information manipulation, cybersecurity). The key is that digital cooperation does not reproduce asymmetries: rights standards, data as a public good, and support for innovation ecosystems in LAC. 

Close ranks around a clear political message (without naivety)

Santa Marta will not resolve the underlying contradictions. It can, however, set priorities and secure measurable commitments: shielding democracy and civic space; reforming trade and climate rules to reduce inequalities (not to “push the ladder” from the North); formalizing and operationalizing the bi-regional care pact; accelerate an energy transition with added value, networks, and decent jobs; and ground the Global Gateway in regional projects that integrate markets and societies (such as electrical interconnection). Only then will this alliance cease to be a sum of bilateralism with photo ops and become a bloc of action in favor of a more horizontal and honest multilateralism based on mutual interest.

As the President of the European Council recalled when announcing the Summit, in times of multiple crises, “strengthening ties with reliable partners matters more than ever.” The credibility of that statement will depend on the alliance achieving coherence between values and policies: rules, resources, and results in the service of more just societies. 

Civil society: a driving force for ambition and accountability

With such a contradictory governmental landscape, it is bi-regional civil society that can drive ambition and ensure accountability mechanisms that do not depend on political ups and downs. We are not starting from scratch: on the road to Santa Marta, there has been a process of convergence between organizations, think tanks, feminist, environmental, trade union, and indigenous peoples’ networks that have put forward clear proposals on democracy, security with rights, just transition, care, and digital integration. This input is already entering official channels.

For this to be credible and sustainable, governance with clear accountability is needed: creating a permanent, multi-stakeholder mechanism for CELAC-EU dialogue—with territorial and sectoral representation, mandates, timelines, and metrics—that guarantees structured civil society participation in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of the agenda, coordinated with the Civil Society Forum and business and development banking spaces. This mechanism must include social and environmental due diligence, open data, budgetary traceability, and accessible complaint and redress mechanisms, in line with the bi-regional commitment to strengthen a more just, inclusive, and effective multilateralism.