Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa on Tuesday stressed “the consensus” at the European Union (EU) summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to express concern over the war in Ukraine, with the exception of Nicaragua.
“With the exception of Nicaragua, all countries, from Lithuania to Cuba, have agreed on a common text expressing their concern for Russia’s war against Ukraine, for a just and lasting peace and support for the initiative of the Secretary General of the United Nations.” the Prime Minister stressed.
In addition, António Costa believes that the European Union should encourage new partnerships in the geopolitical framework, by “making greater efforts to find friends, partners and allies in other regions of the world”.
“I think in the past year Europe has shown signs that it has understood much of the lost time and wants to make up for it,” António Costa stressed at a summit where the discussion on the formulation of Russia’s war against Ukraine took place.
For António Costa, the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean can and should “cooperate” at the political level, within the framework of international institutions, but also take advantage of the “economic potential”. In addition, the prime minister understands that issues related to the energy transition are the best example.
“If one of the regions has the largest reserves of lithium and the other has the largest automotive industry, we all need to work together rather than relying on third parties,” he said.
The implementation of the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur was the other theme that marked the debate. The Prime Minister believes that the deadlock will be broken “by the end of the year” and hopes that Brussels will receive an answer to some questionable questions in the agreement, in particular labor issues and environmental protection, which are included in the “interpretative statement” sent by Brussels to the Mercosur countries.
“The response they will present to the European Union to the supplementary document in the coming weeks has been agreed and that means we will be able to reach an agreement and we are all working with the same goal that this agreement is achieved through the end of the Spanish presence, that is, until the end of the year,” he said.
Source: DN
