Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union Face the Pandemics without Interlocutors

Abstract

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), made up of 33 countries, is a common body for consultation and cooperation with an important external projection. With the birth of CELAC, the European Union (EU) was able to benefit from a legitimate interlocutor in the region. However, the representativeness and legitimacy of CELAC have been in question for some time due to deep ideological divisions among its members and the withdrawal of Brazil, among other factors. As a result, the dynamism of the political dialogue with European countries has been affected. Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, both counterparts sought alternative instances to continue dialogue in the face of CELAC’s impossibility of exercising the role of representative. The appearance of different auxiliary institutions under the umbrella of interregional dialogues shows, actually, the creation of ad hoc instances and of partial membership.