“The EU-Mercosur Agreement is a giant step towards an open, connected, and influential Europe,” said yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, during the closing of the seminar ‘From Negotiation to Action’, which has been held since Thursday at the Palau Macaya in Barcelona.
Albares said that the agreement is also a step towards “a renewed relationship with Latin America,” with the goal of creating the largest free trade area in the world, with 740 million consumers. “We are showing the whole world,” added the minister, “that we can all move forward, side by side” to deepen cooperation, in light of geopolitical tensions and the “strategic competition” among major powers that question multilateralism.
The minister pointed out that now the process enters the ratification phase of the agreement which “will require management, transparency, pedagogy” and assured that we continue working with the EU, “which leads through dialogue, respect, and agreement,” to achieve “an orderly implementation that benefits us all.”
According to Albares, this agreement also reflects the “constant and constructive contribution of Spain to a strong, sovereign European project, committed to the world and coherent with the humanist legacy that inspires our foreign policy.”
The seminar has served as a basis for different experts —Jordi Bacaria, Anna Ayuso, José Luis García Galán, Valeria Csukasi, Alberto Sborovsky, Jordi Colgán, Juan Luis Gimeno, and Susanne Gratius— to analyze the strategic impact that the largest commercial alliance between Europe and Latin America will have in a context of global geopolitical change.