This was the analysis of Sebastian Valdomir - Coordinator of the Economic Justice, Resisting Neoliberalism Program of Friends of the Earth International, on the inauguration of the Spanish presidency of the bloc, on January 1st.

"Spain begins the presidency of the EU by having as its main goal to strengthen the role the bloc is playing in Latin America", said Valdomir in an interview with Real World Radio.

The negotiations around an Association Agreement in the Andean region caused the breaking of the Andean Community of Nations between countries that rejected the terms of the European proposal coming from the Global Europe document, such as Ecuador and Bolivia, and the ones that accepted those proposals like Peru and Colombia.

Meanwhile, the negotiations with MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and soon to be member Venezuela) came to a standstill in 2004-2005. Although in the recent summit in Montevideo it was decided to resume the negotiations, there was no specification as to whether the bloc would propose safeguards to some of the European demands.

Peoples Tribunal and alternatives

If the Latin American political life was marked by the differences between the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms in the 16 and 17 century (and also by the British and French ones) for the size of their respective territories in the continent, today the old metropolis are unified under the monarchy of the project "Europe for European transnational corporations".

But the Latin American governments do not have the same criteria in the relations with the EU, although it was in the Latin American markets and territories where many global European companies became transnational corporations.

Therefore, the ecologic, social and human rights debts that Europe owes to Latin America have not ceased to grow and it is not precisely under the Spanish presidency that the EU would change its behavior, according to Valdomir.

For this reason, he said that the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal will session next May in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, to analyze the paradigmatic court cases filed against the European transnational corporations.

It will also seek to place "the specific alternatives to these legal and economic frameworks that are being straight jackets for the Latin American economies", said Valdomir.

At a domestic level, Valdomir said the compliance of the EU with the Lisbon agenda since last December will only deepen the current state of affairs according to which the burden of the financial crisis will fall on the European workers, both national citizens and immigrants.