Lagos: “Without the Ibero-American Summits, Latin America would be less in the world”

Macarena Soto

Madrid, 17 July (EFE). Latin America would “be less” without the Ibero-American summits, and the possibility of communicating with Europe would also be less without celebrating them, according to former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, whose presence in six of these appointments also led to the leadership of one of the renewal committees .

In an interview with Efe on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the summit, which began in Guadalajara (Mexico) in 1991, the former leader of the Chilean Socialist Party appreciates the existence of these forums where Latin America can also “integrate” as a region.

Lagos, president of Chile from 2000 to 2006, looks back and asserts that these meetings between 19 Latin American countries, Spain, Portugal and Andorra caused the concept of “Iberian America to gain strength in the region.”

“It was discovered what it meant to have a foot in the Iberian peninsula and to come closer to Europe, and Spain and Portugal, and especially Spain, began to feel very correctly that they had a special relationship with this part of the world, both sides were discovering that we were a little more in the world” .

Peaks, more needed than ever

According to the former president, in this time of the pandemic, peaks are “more necessary than ever”.

“I think they are now necessary for a greater reason, because there is a confluence of not only interests but common visions, it gives us a common space to understand each other,” he stated.

In his view, an “increasingly globalized” world requires “more global governance” as Latin America wants to “say something” even though it warns that if the region’s governments “can’t understand each other, we’re wrong.”

“The pandemic is the third largest global crisis in 20 years and we do not have space to discuss it, and today it is more important than ever to understand that this core between Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula is even more important, because it forces us to think in a common way how we deal with this case,” he adds in this regard.

Big Summit Challenge: Enjoy with one vote

It is clear that the Chilean politician, who represented Chile during the Six Summits, sympathy between the presidents influences the international politics of the countries.

“The relationship between the presidents was completely different. I was elected and ten months later (Vicente) Fox was elected in Mexico, and he had some distance in my view, but I had no disagreement with him in international affairs,” he said.

In his opinion, the great challenge at summits is to “speak with one voice, regardless of ideological approaches”.

“These that seem very important and lead us to many discussions are all discussions of the 20th century, about the industrial revolution, where do you tell friends, we are in the digital revolution, don’t follow me by the standards of the industrial revolution, the issues that unite us the most,” he asserts. .

In this sense, he wonders how the region will resolve the trade clash between China and the United States in Latin America and asks that more look to Europe to determine policy in this regard.

He points out that “we need a collective vision and this can be discussed at an Ibero-American summit.”

in the right direction

For the summits to continue to be useful in the future, Lagos points out that it must focus on the “daily lives” of citizens and commends that the last meeting, held in April in Andorra, focused on the pandemic and how the region can help itself find a way out of the crisis.

“The Andorra summit went in the right direction, he understood that the pandemic is a huge challenge that forces us to achieve greater integration because the spectacle of every person running to buy ventilators and vaccines cannot be shown, it goes back a lot as humans.”

Thus, he believes that the processing of that everyday life is “the most complex” that “people see only the gentlemen they meet”.

“When you are a big country you can speak for yourself, we are a small and medium-sized country, we do not influence, and it is very important that it belongs to an international organization, and summits are necessary, it gives us greater facilities an unprecedented convergence than before we thought we would not achieve,” As it is supposed. EFE

© EFE 2021. Redistribution and redistribution of all or part of the contents of the Efe Services, without the prior and express consent of EFE SA, is expressly prohibited.