Gustavo Petro doubles his diplomatic commitment to diversify Colombia’s partners with the 4th summit between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and the European Union this Sunday. His government has been preparing for months for the event in the “heart of the world”, as the president usually calls the port of Santa Marta and the adjacent Sierra Nevada, due to its spiritual significance for the indigenous Kogi people. “We will meet again to embrace and shake hands across civilizations in a union that will lead us to become the democratic beacon leading the world towards a decarbonized economy that protects our common future,” he wrote on his social networks on Friday, in a final appeal. There is still some uncertainty about how many heads of state will respond to his call in a stormy time.
The meeting brings together the 27 countries of the European Union and the 33 of Latin America and the Caribbean. A dozen leaders are expected, out of the 60 that make up both blocks. Despite the delicate absence of the President of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council, Rodrigo Costa, will be present in the Caribbean city; the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez; the Prime Minister of Portugal, Luis Montenegro; and the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, among others. The presence of the Uruguayan Yamandú Orsi remained in suspense until the last minute.
The agenda includes topics as diverse as energy and digital transition, climate change, security and migration. “A bloc of 60 countries should not miss this opportunity to advance on issues that connect and benefit them, and this is where we must take advantage. Before we fuel differences, we must make common cause in what benefits everyone,” the newspaper editorial notes. The timewhich called for political pragmatism. “Colombia should take advantage of this exceptional scenario to moderate its discourse and strengthen relations with a continent that wants and needs to get closer to Latin America within the framework of the new global order that is emerging.”
Beyond Petro’s usual grandiloquence, the summit is taking place in the midst of tensions produced across the region by the Donald Trump administration’s attacks against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and – to a lesser extent – in the Pacific. On the eve of the meeting, three people died this Thursday in a new US Army operation against a vessel in Caribbean waters. Already 18 boats have sunk in just two months of extrajudicial attacks, which have caused the death of at least 69 civilians.
Although this naval deployment was originally directed against Venezuelan drug trafficking cartels, in what was interpreted as a pressure mechanism on Nicolás Maduro’s regime, at least four of the attacks had a direct relationship with Colombia, which put a strain on the atmosphere around the summit.
President Petro, one of the most vocal critics of these operations, suspects that several Colombians were among the victims. He also denounced that at least one of the attacks in the Caribbean “allegedly” occurred in Colombian waters. It refers to the one who killed a “humble fisherman”, originally from Santa Marta. US authorities said another of the attacks, the first in the Pacific, occurred “off the coast of Colombia”, without too many details. Furthermore, one of the few survivors is Colombian and another of the attacks was directed against a ship linked by Washington to the ELN guerrillas, who denied this connection.
One of the highest profile attendees expected in Santa Marta referred to the elephant in the room. The Celac-EU summit “makes sense” only if we discuss “the issue of US warships in the seas of Latin America”, noted Lula, confirming his presence. European leaders, on the other hand, are not so enthusiastic about tackling this thorny issue, so foreign to trade relations or cooperation between the two blocs.
Another set of factors overshadowed the meeting. Added to the war in Ukraine due to the Russian invasion – which has not received unanimous condemnation in Latin America -, to trade disputes and to the growing presence of China in the region, are the recent sanctions by the US Treasury against Petro, which the White House links without evidence to drug trafficking.
Despite this context, expectations remain high in the host country. “Never before in Colombia have we managed to bring two regions together, regardless of the level of leaders present,” says Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, Colombia’s deputy minister of multilateral affairs. He underlines that at this moment, when there is an offensive against multilateralism and international law, it is the two regions of the world that have the largest number of democracies. “We have a compatibility of interests and values,” he underlines. This is the second most important summit that Colombia has hosted, he assures, comparable only to that of the Non-Aligned Countries in 1995, in Cartagena.
The summit of the Non-Aligned Countries, which resembles what we today understand as the Global South, took place during the mandate of another Colombian president at odds with the White House: Ernesto Samper (1994-1998). During his time, Bogotá suffered for the first time the feared decertification in the fight against drug trafficking, a punishment that is now repeated with Petro. Both also had their visas revoked. Despite this stigma, Samper later worked for the Latin American integration of Unasur or the Puebla Group.
“This moment is appropriate because both Europe and Latin America are experiencing the same crisis, of disorder, of disorientation,” says Samper in dialogue with EL PAÍS. “For Latin America, the role that Europe can play is very important. We need to rethink the agenda with the United States, which is too hegemonic for our integration needs,” he says. “When this hurricane passes, we will have the chance to find new global patterns of coexistence, to recognize that there are other poles that can act as a balance. We need the world to change, but for the better and not for the worse.”
