Members of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat), composed of 75 MEPs and 75 representatives of Latin American and Caribbean parliaments, participate on 13 and 14 April in the Assembly’s fourteenth plenary session, under the title “A fair and inclusive economic recovery in peace”. The Assembly begins with speeches by EuroLat co-presidents Javi López and Óscar Darío Pérez Pineda, and Cristina Fernandez de KIRCHNER, Vice President of Argentina and President of the Chamber of Senators and with Cristina Kirchner, Vice president of the Republic of Argentina

LÓPEZ, Javi (S&D, ES)

EuroLat (T)

Argentina

EU - Latin America (T)

14th Plenary Session of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly: Opening statements

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - I would like to start by expressing my enjoy that I feel at being able to once again come back and meet in the Euro-Latin American Summit with physical presence. Although IT and communication technologies have been extremely important in maintaining contact and working on our shared projects, nothing can be the same as the warmth and fraternity that you experience when we can meet once again all in the same place.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - The last two years have been marked by significant challenges and difficulties on the international scene, particularly for the various fora such as this assembly, which are focussing on democracy and which bring together representatives of citizens of different ideologies, beliefs and different ways of seeing the world.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - Nonetheless, our assembly will continue its constant work in order to overcome obstacles that arise and to ensure the work of the committees and the bureau. And we work on that in 2021. That would not have been possible without the significant efforts made by co-president Javi López and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his commitment that is shown in strengthening the bi-regional relations.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - I would also like to take this opportunity to thank ex-senator of the Santa Fe region, Omar Perotti, who was the first person to suggest that this meeting should take place in the beautiful land of Argentina. Furthermore, I would like to thank Senator Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, Senator Silvia Giacoppo and all of the Senate of the Republic of Argentina for taking this initiative and for welcoming us into your home and doing everything possible to ensure the success of all of the activities that are taking place under this 14th Ordinary Session of the EUROLAT Assembly.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - As we heard yesterday, our hospitality comes naturally to the people of Argentina. So anyone who comes here will never feelClike they are foreign.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - In recent years, one of the key things that has impacted all aspects of our life has, of course, been the covid-19 pandemic. Today, according to figures, over two million people in Europe and 60 million people in Latin America have been affected. And there have also been uncountable deaths in our regions. Nonetheless, we have done what we have seen is human ability and cooperation in order to meet the technological, social, political challenges that we've seen, as well as the health care challenges that were thrown up by the pandemic.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - In Europe about 580 million people are vaccinated and in Latin America and the Caribbean it's 430 million, according to the WHO. This progress, these figures, do not represent the end of the pandemic or the end of the challenges and the work that we're going to have to do. This is just the start. They are just the first step that we've been able to take and which show that when you have commitment and solidarity, then human beings can overcome any problems that they face.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - That's why this 14th Plenary Session of EUROLAT and the message that we want to send out to the Union of Heads of State and government of the bi-regional association as co presidents is that we want to see a fair and inclusive economic recovery. Although making progress and vaccinate is important, what we don't want is that the post pandemic world should be the same as the one that we lived in before 2020.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - This dark moment cannot end and have yet another return to the historic inequality that we've seen: unequal access to public services and discrimination and poverty for large sectors of our populations. No, the outcome of this meeting has to be a road map with policies and targeted recommendations in all of the major topics that the committees have been working on in order to ensure that our two regions will be the driving force behind recovery.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - And we won't go back to a world that is unsustainable. One example of that is the high levels of public debt for many Latin American countries, perhaps all of them. These countries have difficulty in ensuring the economic and social recovery. Therefore, I would like to urge everyone present to work to ensure that international multilateral credit institutions and that the lender states should establish policies to substitute debt, or at least part of it, into investment and social development.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - That's the only way we will genuinely be able to construct countries and regions and a world which is fair and inclusive despite the challenges we face. We won't be looking merely at the post pandemic debates. We also have to look at serious debates that should be had in the international organisations in recent years. The international system has to ensure self-determination and sovereignty for people, and they are clamouring for our support and our help.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - We need to fight totalitarianism. Those who want to impose themselves through arms, death and invasion. And in light of this, I would like to urge all of you to raise up our voice to reject war, violence and discrimination. We have to, through our work and our committees and the plenary and the other bodies of this assembly, work to demonstrate that Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole are regions of peace which reject violence and which promote diplomatic, peaceful, negotiated ways to overcome differences.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - Taking account of all of these challenges, I would like to just say that I want to ensure that this EUROLAT assembly will mark a new phase in the relations between the two regions. We have to leave behind political and ideological differences and ensure pragmatic cooperation, cooperation which will have at its heart the well-being of individuals and communities. Cooperation which will leave behind the divisions between the major poles of the international systems, which will become and which will find a third way to provide a new model of sustainable development, social equity and democracy.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - That's why we need to reactivate summits between Latin American and the Caribbean, CELAC, and the European Union, to strengthen our cooperation. We also need to turn 180 degrees in the way in which the EUROLAT assembly work. Since 2006, we have focussed on the legislators from the two regions, but now we have to focus on everything that we do, the decisions that we make, our resolutions that are adopted by citizens. Therefore, I believe we need to establish a new strategy which will be based on the need to focus on the resolutions that come out of our parliaments and the work being done in Latin American level and in international bodies.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - That's how we can ensure that our debate and the knowledge that we build in these sessions will not merely remain ink on paper, but will become a tool in the service of our people. If we can do that, this assembly will become a reference point at the international level, which will have a positive impact on its regions. Ladies and gentlemen, members of Parliament, the work that lies ahead will be difficult, but I'm sure that I can count on all of your commitment to ensure that this assembly will become a reference point for recommendations, good practises, exchange views and public policies in favour of the well-being of all people in our region.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - Madam Vice President, you are up to this challenge. You have a commitment and please be assured that the Argentine people who we love so much and who love you so much will be victorious.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Oscar Dario PEREZ PINEDA, President of the Latin American component - We will work to ensure that the outcome of our meetings is entirely successful. The success of the EURLAT Assembly means the success of the people that we represent.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - Well, I feel somewhat like I'm out of my depth here, feels like the first concert of the Beatles. But I'll try to be as quick as I possibly can in my remarks this morning. Thank you so much for being here this morning and thank you first and foremost to the vice president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, for being here with us this morning. She is here as the authority, as the President of the Senate and has been so active in the participation of this 14th EUROLAT Assembly. It is a significant one at that, there are a hundred members of parliament. It's been ten years since one hundred of them. So we know that there are 1.2 billion individuals represented here via more than one hundred members of parliament that are present.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - So thank you so much to the Secretariat from the Argentine Parliament. Thank you to the Secretariat of the European Parliament. Thank you so much to everyone who assisted us and who did all that made it possible for us to be here today to have these debates. And we're doing this at a time that's a quite particular really in Argentina, which currently holds the temporary presidency of CELAC. And as its driving rule means that its extremely crucial for us to be here in Argentina today.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - Now, we're also meeting after two years of pandemics. And this was an experience that was so complicated for everyone, for governments, authorities, citizens, a tragedy that has overhauled the lives of every single individual. And now we know that the pandemic made us all equal. It made us all isolated, but at the same time, it connected us all to what an enormous experience this was. Everyone saw their life completely overhauled and the first time in the World Cup, of course, I must not get into that. But aside from that, we know that it has been a hundred years since the planet experienced a pandemic. And the last thing that impacted us like that was the World War.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - So we also know that it reminded us that humanity has a common destiny and that we can't do it alone, that we have no choice but be together, that we have a shared destiny and needs to be shared destiny. So over the course of these two days, we're going to continue to speak about the pandemic, how we continue to fight it. We know that in some places of the world, vaccination has not yet come and we need to make that access to the vaccination universal access, because we know, and the pandemic reminded us, that science is the best ally that institutions and citizens have. And that those over the course of recent years they tried to deny that and to pretend that science didn't mean anything and then actually what we saw was that we all had to go back to that belief, that firm belief in science. We had no choice.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - Science, vaccination, making it equal for all, universal access for a vaccine. Let's talk about that. A pandemic that continues to hit many places hard. We're also talking about recovery, the economic recovery. That is not an easy task: essentially, world went into hibernation, the economies went into hibernation so that we could protect our health. And that had an enormous social impact in every single corner of the world. And it wasn't easy, of course, to take decisions in that context. It wasn't easy and isn't easy for us to manage and govern.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - And now what we know is that the economic recovery absolutely has to factor in the fact that there's no way we can go back to the world as it was before, in the pre-pandemic world. We cannot go back to that. We need to have this recovery that is going to change things and that raises two new challenges. The climate change, as well as our green action. We also are going to need an economic recovery that factors in inequality. We know that over the course of the last two years, the pandemic made inequality worse in our countries and in the world. And so this is a question not just of justice, but it's also a question of what our economies need, because if we don't address this, our economies are worse off and more inequality, and that's actually going to sap our institutions.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - We've seen that everywhere, wherever that may be. So recovery, that means that we're going to need also a tax aspect and access to credit, wherever that may be. We need a fair recovery and an inclusive recovery. And of course, we also have to discuss about what has taken place over the course over the last few weeks on European land, the invasion of a country, Ukraine. This is something that Europeans are very concerned about, is not because it's about Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, but because of this tragedy that they are experiencing firsthand. But it's also about what our vision for the world is. How do we want to organise our world in the future? Do we want to have rules, rules that everyone has to abide by, the same rules for everyone? Or do we want a world that is managed via force and might? This is the debate that we have and we have to state it clearly because the world is going to have to react. The world is indeed reacting.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - Moreover, it's important to talk about the consequences of the war because the war is not just a tragedy in Ukraine. It is, but it's also having an impact on energy prices and it is triggering inflation all around the world, in Europe, in our countries, but around the world and also because war is something that is going to undermine food security for a huge proportion of the world's population. And international organisations will have to be able to coordinate work hand in hand to make sure that we do not, that this does not result in hunger anywhere, anywhere in the world, because this is the real risk. This is the real risk.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - Now, the war also reminded us a few things in terms of relations with the world. And specifically, I'd like to focus here on our relations with Latin America. We know that if we if we look back, for example, if we look around us in your neighbourhood, we have very important elections in the United States. And I'd like to thank the entire region for having shown this strength in terms of making sure that rules were respected, specifically, Argentina in this case, which was so important for us. So I think that this shows us, it tells us, that we have a real shared vision for the world.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - You know, perhaps we know that geographically we aren't close to each other, but yet we share so much. We are open societies. We want to build a demanding democracy, rules-based democracy. But we know that we have to have that social cohesion and opportunities for all, because otherwise none of this will work, we need to have open societies for globalisation, a rules based form of globalisation, with a human face. This is what we defend. And both regions that are represented here in the world, we defend this.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - And so the world is changing, its changing greatly and therefore it would be a good opportunity for both regions to work together. So having that EU CELAC Summit, of course, that has been suspended now for a number of years, but the parliamentary branch of that maintained its role and that is crucial. So with our relations, and I'd like to conclude on this point, our relations between Latin America and Europe, well, that depends. The lack, the risk of that is a is a bipolar world, a world of tension. We would like to see a multipolar world, an inclusive world, a colour for a world, you know, not just a black and white world. A world that is a rules-based world with institutions and multilateral institutions that function and work for all, as well as financial institutions that need to be reformed, as well as political institutions. And this is the world that we want to see. And that is why relati...

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Javi LÓPEZ (S&D,ES), Co-President of Eurolat - Now, to conclude, of course, here we are in Argentin, in Buenos Aires. And this was a part of our deliberations that I'd just like to remind all that this is the 40th anniversary of the Malvinas. We also discussed that points too. It was important to recall this, that we with their solution and international law and within the United Nations, because it is important to remember this time.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Cristina Fernandez de KIRCHNER, Vice President of Argentina and President of the Chamber of Senators - Opening statement