On 28 March, the Executive Director of the EU-LAC International Foundation, Dr Adrián Bonilla participated in the meeting of the Working Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (COLAC Capitals) of the Council of the European Union in Brussels. Furthermore, he attended a couple of working meetings to discuss the Foundation’s activities in 2023.
Looking ahead towards the third EU-CELAC Summit taking place in July 2023, the COLAC Capitals Meeting was attended by delegates of all 27 EU Member States, who engaged in a fruitful dialogue on the official Road to 2023 timeline. The Capitals format is celebrated every 6 months and handles EU relations with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with regional integration bodies such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and other sub-regional bodies.
Dr Adrián Bonilla took this opportunity to present the EU-LAC Foundation’s initiatives in preparation for the summit, which aim to gather civil society actors from the EU and CELAC countries for exchanges on strategic topics of the bi-regional partnership: knowledge, gender equality and just transitions. Moreover, in the spirit of 2023 being the year of “Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe”, the EU-LAC Foundation plans several follow-up activities in the second semester, such as the Multi-actor Forum, that will bring together key societal and political representatives for joint approaches on bi-regional actions.
Other themes of discussion were the ratification status of the Constitutive Agreement of the international organisation, the Headquarters Agreement, as well as the upcoming ordinary Board of Governors meeting in May. Those topics were further developed in additional bilateral meetings with Felice Zaccheo, Deputy Director General, Directorate-General International Partnerships of the European Commission and Claudia Gintersdorfer, Head of Unit for Regional Affairs, Latin America and the Caribbean, European External Action Service that same day.
