Home > LATIN AMERICA-EU: Cooperation or Dependency? BY Julio Godoy (IPS)

LATIN AMERICA-EU: Cooperation or Dependency? BY Julio Godoy (IPS)

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 13 May 2006

Trade-Exchange Rates Europe South/Latin America

Inter Press Service News Agency
http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=33205
Saturday, May 13, 2006 06:41 GMT

LATIN AMERICA-EU:
Cooperation or Dependency?

Julio Godoy

VIENNA, May 11 (IPS) - The EU-Latin America/Caribbean summit, to take place Friday in the Austrian capital, will be marked by the contradictions that pervade relations between the two regions. While the governments tout cooperation, civil society organisations complain that it often merely serves to strengthen ties that benefit corporate Europe.
Social activists say EU-Latin America relations fail to take into account the economic asymmetries and power imbalances between the two regions, or the social reality and urgent need for development, social justice, environmental protection and defence of human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A typical official declaration came from European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and European Neighbourhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner last month, when she presented the new EU strategy aimed at strengthening the "partnership" with Latin America and the Caribbean.

"We want to reinforce our mutual understanding and the existing partnership to create new dialogues and opportunities for both regions," she said.

But non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Europe and Latin America question such statements, and say official development aid and cooperation is at times just another channel for draining resources from Latin America to Europe.

"Our 15 years of experience of free-market neoliberal policies have shown that multinational capital has taken control of our natural resources, our trees, our water, even our seeds," said Pedro Stedile with Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).

Stedile, who is taking part in the Permanent People’s Tribunal held parallel to the summit, mentioned in particular "European transnational capital," such as the capital that is financing the Norwegian-Brazilian Aracruz Celulosa paper pulp company.

Both the MST and Vía Campesina, a global network of rural movements, say Aracruz Celulosa is the company with the largest "green desert" in Brazil, with more than 250,000 hectares planted with fast-growing pulp trees - which deplete the soil and water sources - including 50,000 in the southern province of Río Grande do Sul alone.

"Aracruz’s factories produce 2.4 million tons of white paper pulp a year, polluting the air and water, and damaging the health of local residents, without generating significant employment and without contributing to just economic development characterised by solidarity," Stedile told IPS in Vienna.

The Permanent People’s Tribunal is holding its hearings in Vienna Wednesday through Friday.

The purpose of the Tribunal, according to the statement distributed to the press, is "to denounce human rights violations and cases of economic and environmental injustice committed by the 30 biggest European corporations in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean."

The criticisms have targeted, for example, oil companies like BP (formerly British Petroleum) and the Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF. According to Christian Ferreyra, with the Bolivian Documentation and Information Centre, both firms are taking part in the construction of a pipeline in the Chaco basin in southern Bolivia.

"We are opposed to the pipeline, which we consider a mechanism of expropriation of Bolivia’s natural resources," said Ferreyra at the opening session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal.

The central role of European corporations in the EU strategy towards Latin America has been demonstrated by the business forum taking place simultaneously with the summit in Vienna, organised by the Austrian Ministry of the Economy and Federal Economic Chamber, the country’s biggest business lobby group.

Some 300 executives from the two regions are taking part in the forum, under the theme "bridging the two worlds through business and culture". The panels are discussing opportunities for global companies in Latin America and the Caribbean, finance and trade, global forces and their implications for Latin America, and other issues.

Speakers include EU Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner and the bloc’s Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Günter Verheugen, as well as Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno and executives from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and leading European corporations.

In the view of Abel Esteban, an analyst with the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), the business forum is basically a debate among lobby groups, where European participants predominate.

"Many of the representatives of Latin American companies actually represent subsidiaries of European corporations," the activist told IPS.

"Besides discussing business opportunities in Latin America, the business representatives have already called on the governments of Latin America to accelerate progress towards free trade agreements between the two regions," he added.

Esteban pointed to a message from the European Commission - the EU executive body - which stated that commissioners Ferrero-Waldner and Verheugen would stress the benefits of free trade agreements and strong commercial ties between Europe and Latin America.

The Commission also expressed hope that the business forum would contribute to progress in the negotiations on free trade deals, thanks to the active participation of the sector in the talks.

The opening ceremony of the fourth EU-LAC summit, which will bring together the heads of state and government of the 25 EU member states and the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, is taking place on Thursday.

The first three EU-LAC summits were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1999, in Madrid, Spain in 2002, and in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2004.

During the summit, the leaders will continue negotiating free trade agreements between the two regions, and will discuss cooperation in the fight against drugs, organised crime and terrorism, and in areas like migration, science and technology, and energy.

Latin American leaders will also hold side meetings to discuss a broad range of issues as well as bilateral and regional disputes and conflicts.

Despite the pomp and high-profile of the Vienna Summit, most observers expect few to no concrete results, especially given the imbalances between the two regions, in economic clout and other areas, and the lack of unity among Latin American countries that is threatening to weaken their own regional blocs. (FIN/2006)

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