Social Cohesion in Europe and Latin America: The EU-LAC Summit in LIMA (May 15/16, 2008)

Next year, the strategic partnership between Europe and the states of Latin America and the Caribbean will celebrate the tenth anniversary of its foundation. The two regions are linked by intense cooperation in the economic, political, scientific, and cultural sphere. Many of the partnership’s ambitious goals have already been achieved; however, much remains to be done: talks about an association agreement between the EU and Mercosur are bogged down, and relations with the Andean Community are anything but unproblematic. What is more, the number of European diplomatic missions in the region decreased, as did the number of cultural facilities and development-policy mediators and projects operated by Europe.