disputed South Atlantic islands<\/a>, the condemnation of the U.S. blockade against Cuba, and Bolivia\u2019s request for a sovereign outlet to the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\nThe Santiago Declaration further established the \u201cimportance of providing legal certainty for economic operators\u201d and made a commitment to \u201cmaintain a supportive business environment for investors (\u2026) while recognising the sovereign right of states to regulate.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u00e1vila said investors must act accordingly, recognising \u201cthe right of countries to regulate in order to meet their national policy objectives in accordance with their international commitments and obligations\u201d, as stated in the declaration.<\/p>\n
Concurring with her, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Graziano da Silva, told IPS that the world is used \u201cto treating investment as a private matter, subject to the will of investors, assuming that the country receiving the capital has to yield at all times to the will of the other party.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s changed,\u201d he said. \u201cA broad agreement must be reached on the issue\u201d in order to ensure that \u201cinvestments are made responsibly and are, consequently, honoured,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Trade between CELAC and EU countries grew by an annual average of 13 percent between 2002 and 2011, according to official figures, reaching a total of 276 billion dollars in 2011. In 2012, trade figures were up by 23.9 percent compared with 2011.<\/p>\n
As for capital movements between the two regions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that foreign direct investment (FDI) by the EU in CELAC countries amounted to 613 billion dollars in 2011, representing 47 percent of FDI in the CELAC region, and five percent of the EU\u2019s global investments.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a press conference, the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, recalled that the EU remains the largest foreign investor in Latin America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
In spite of the achievement of ALBA representatives led by Venezuela, the final text of the Santiago Declaration also includes a commitment to \u201cavoid protectionism in all its forms\u201d in order to \u201cfavour an open and non-discriminatory, rules-based multilateral trade system\u201d.<\/p>\n
Van Rompuy said the EU \u201canxiously\u201d awaits a trade agreement with the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay (membership currently suspended), Uruguay and Venezuela.<\/p>\n
These negotiations have been stalled for years, and their reactivation appears a far-off prospect, given the protectionist measures imposed by Argentina and Brazil as a defence against the economic and financial crisis in the industrialised North, especially in the EU.<\/p>\n
However, Van Rompuy said he was optimistic that the bilateral talks would resume soon. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany also called for progress on the negotiations and for an end to protectionism.<\/p>\n
The EU announced free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia, and an association agreement between the EU and Central America also took shape at the Santiago Summit.<\/p>\n
FAO director da Silva stressed that an EU-Mercosur agreement would allow for further integration of the regions\u2019 economies, both in the agricultural sector and in services and industry. He also expressed his desire to \u201cadvance and overcome the barriers that prevent this offer from becoming a real and effective agreement\u201d.<\/p>\n
The 14-page Santiago Declaration contains over 40 points of agreement, including the commitment of both blocs to multilateralism, respect for indigenous peoples, gender equality and human rights, and rejection of terrorism in all its forms.<\/p>\n
The leaders of the two regions undertook to strive for \u201csustainable development in its three dimensions: economic, social and environmental\u201d, and expressed their concern about the economic crisis, as \u201crecovery remains very slow\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe firmly reject all coercive measures of unilateral character with extraterritorial effect that are contrary to international law and the commonly accepted rules of free trade,\u201d the declaration says.<\/p>\n
The signatories of the Santiago summit\u2019s final declaration observe that this kind of practice represents a serious threat to multilateralism.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this context, and with reference to UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) resolution A\/RES\/67\/4, we reaffirm our well-known positions on the application of the extra-territorial provisions of the Helms-Burton Act,\u201d they state, referring to the U.S. law that exacerbated its embargo against Cuba, the country that will exercise the CELAC\u2019s next temporary presidency.<\/p>\n
Guillermo Holzmann, a Chilean political scientist, said that although CELAC did not come to the summit with one voice, as countries within the region have divergent positions, it did constitute a single organisation that today has \u201ca significant opportunity for consolidation\u201d.<\/p>\n
In that sense, he told IPS that the region can rightly flex its muscles, because it is part of the solution to the European economic crisis, but no longer as part of \u201ca single relationship of dependency\u201d.<\/p>\n
Go to Original \u2013 ipsnews.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The nations of Latin America and the Caribbean strengthened their position with respect to Europe at the CELAC-EU summit held this weekend [Jan 26-27, 2013] in the Chilean capital, reaching agreements that protect their natural resources from foreign investors and securing a joint condemnation of the United States\u2019 trade embargo against Cuba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,53,146,203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-economics","category-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}