PETRO WANTS 2025 CELAC-EU SUMMIT IN COLOMBIA TO FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND WAR
By Aquí Europa
The Colombian government wants the agenda of the Summit between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the EU to be held next year in Colombia to focus on the climate crisis and the war.
This was stated by the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, after meeting this Saturday, February 17, 2024, with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, in Munich, where both have participated in the annual Security Conference.
Colombia will enter the next Celac summit to be held at the end of this month in Barbados in the troika to receive next year’s presidency, and during that term the fourth edition of the summit between this American body and the EU will be held.
“The next step is for us to assume the co-presidency and the presidency of Celac, which is the union of all Latin America, and with Denmark we will build a team for the next meeting next year of Latin America and Europe, which has to revolve around a concrete agenda of overcoming the climate crisis and the war,” Petro explained.
On his Twitter account Borrell said: “In a meeting with President Gustavo Petro we discussed the war in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as the importance of finding joint solutions to the problem of drug trafficking and organized crime. The EU and Colombia will work closely together in view of the EU-CELAC 2025 Summit”.
PARTICIPATION IN THE MCS 2024
President Gustavo Petro proposed a democratic pact between countries, “that is, between humanity”, which implies a new relationship of public power that “has to be global, it can no longer be national”, to face the climate crisis, avoid the destruction of democratic values and prevent humanity from falling into barbarism, war and extinction.
“A global, democratic public power means changing power relations. If we want to keep the same as today – that means brute force is measured in number of airplanes and bombs – or if we really want to survive as humanity. That means the number of votes,” said the head of state at the opening debate of the Munich Security Conference (MSC).
In his presentation to more than 50 heads of state and government and some 300 delegates from almost 100 countries, the Head of State pointed out that the climate crisis “is politically transformed into barbarism, fascism” and the “destruction of the total democratic values of mankind”, which is why “public power is needed again. But public power has to be global, it can no longer be national”.
By way of example, President Petro brought up phenomena such as migrations and armed conflicts faced by nations, caused by the scarcity of water and other natural resources, due to the consumption of fossil fuels.
“There is no other possible way out. A democratic pact. Both Africa and South America have the greatest clean energy potential on the planet. It can be seen as in the past, with oil, as a plunder. You can see how it pact. You have the chimney that spews CO2 and is leading us to barbarism and extinction. We have clean energy”, emphasized President Petro.
The President opened the inaugural debate of the event in the company of the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres; the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor, and the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo.
The Conference was also attended by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Presidents of Ukraine, Volodymir Zelenski, and Israel, Isaac Herzog, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
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This article was originally published in Aquí Europa, with whose permission we reproduce it.
