The Diplomat
The sixth edition of the Congress of the Business Council Alliance for Ibero-America (CEAPI) concluded yesterday with the adoption of a joint manifesto in which the participants expressed their support for the “virtuous triangle” formed by Spain, the EU and Latin America to face “economic uncertainty and threats to democracy”.
The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid hosted from Wednesday the sixth CEAPI congress, which, under the title Spain, The Bridge of Ibero-America and Europe. The time is now: the great opportunity, brought together 400 business leaders, business families and leading institutional figures from Ibero-America and Spain. During the closing of the event, the President of the Council, Núria Vilanova, announced that the seventh edition will be held from June 17 to 19, 2024 in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia).
Yesterday, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said that the capital wants to be “the epicenter of Ibero-America and the Spanish language thanks to our lifestyle, our facilities for doing business and our competitiveness”. “The best is yet to come and we want to enhance the Ibero-American vocation, Spain is the bridge between Europe and Latin America and Madrid its heart. We do not understand the future without Ibero-America,” he added.
The various round tables, panels and interviews held over the two days of the Congress addressed key issues on the international agenda, with special emphasis on the need to seize the opportunity to launch a strategic alliance between the EU and Latin America, as well as other issues such as the promotion of infrastructure, innovation and education in the region, the fight against inequality, the role of business and investment as a driver of change.
At the end of the meeting, the businessmen and senior executives attending the VI CEAPI Congress joined the manifesto prepared for this edition, which warns that 2023 should be “a key year for the relationship between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean after a few years of slowdown in their strategic partnership”.
“The current international political, social and economic landscape has been influenced, in less than five years, by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war, pandemic and spiraling inflation at the international level,” some “facts that have pushed the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean to rethink their role in the emerging geopolitical chessboard, but which, above all, has pushed it to strengthen and enhance those historical, social, cultural and economic ties that unite the two regions,” reads the manifesto.
“In a context of economic uncertainty, change in the productive matrix and threats to democracies,” it continues, “the EU and CELAC have the opportunity, at the Brussels summit in July, to relaunch their strategic relationship and strengthen the alliance.” “This is a window of opportunity for Europeans and Ibero-Americans to project themselves internationally, acquire greater weight on the world stage and design a new international geopolitical framework based on democratic principles and multilateralism in the face of authoritarian and aggressive threats”, it adds.
For this reason, the document claims the need to strengthen ties between Latin America and Europe, through the power of the “virtuous triangle between Spain, Europe and Latin America”. “Spain and Latin America are the basis on which a virtuous triangle is built,” the manifesto states. “Spanish companies learned to be global by investing in Latin America and the Caribbean” and that “allowed them to gain dimension, and above all global mentality and processes,” it continues. “Spanish companies have been renewing their interest in investing in the region for more than three decades” and, in turn, “Multilatinas have landed in Spain, which has become a hub for their global projection”, it continues. Therefore, “businessmen are key in the task of continuing to build and expand the transatlantic link in the future,” the text states.
During the closing speech, Núria Vilanova announced that the next annual Ibero-American CEAPI Congress will return to Latin America in 2024 with the celebration of its seventh edition, from June 17 to 19, in Cartagena de Indias. “Our work is not finished here, from now on we start working on the congress in Colombia,” said the president of CEAPI, who was accompanied by Omar González, president of Trinity Group, based in Bogotá; Jaime Alberto Cabal, president of Fenalco (Colombia); Eduardo Ávila Navarrete, ambassador of Colombia in Spain; and Luis Felipe Quintero, deputy minister of Foreign Trade of Colombia.
