EU-Latin America: Towards a Constructive Model of Partnership

Abstract

The article deals with the future-oriented forms in the bi-regional partnership between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The author analyses changes in the cooperation on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean with special attention to the geo-economic and geo-strategic interests of the parties due to the signing of the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement. The author holds that the EU currently needs a renewed approach to its dialogue with the LAC. In this regard a promising form of cooperation is the joint implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (agenda 2030). The author argues that the official development assistance and environmental programmes might be an important component of a constructive EU-LAC partnership. The EU currently implements a wide range of initiatives in sustainable development. Thus, the members of European Union seek to move forward to a new pattern of reproduction in the world economic system, based on the SDG agenda, both within the EU and in the interregional North-South cooperation. In this context, the significance of the EU and the LAC interaction in three dimensions of sustainable development ‒ economic, social and ecological – is growing.