The European Parliament and Latin America: Agreeing to Disagree

Book Title: 
The Palgrave Handbook of EU-Latin American Relations
Author(s): 
Publication Year: 
2025
Publisher: 
Palgrave Macmillan Cham
DOI: 
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80216-4
ISBN: 
978-3-031-80215-7
Pages: 
115-129
Abstract: 

This chapter examines the Euro-Latin American inter-parliamentary relations, in particular the engagement of the European Parliament (EP) with the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) parliamentarians, grounded in previous literature on EU-LAC inter-regional and inter-parliamentary relations and parliamentary documentation from the EP’s online database and Latin American repositories. After introducing the phenomenon of increasing involvement of the EP in international affairs (state of the art), it identifies the actors involved and the forms of interactions for EP-Latin American relations, including their main motivations to engage in inter-regional relations (demand side). It discusses whether EU-LAC inter-parliamentary relations have succeeded in—on the supply side—increasing the socialization of parliamentary actors from the two regions, constructing collective positions over global and inter-regional pressing challenges. At the same time, it emphasizes that on some occasions, inter-parliamentary encounters such as those within Eurolat enabled parliamentarians to voice divergent opinions regarding certain inter-regional issues.

Keywords: 
Latin American Politics; Interregionalism; EU actorness; Latin American Regionalism; Euro-Latin American Space; Development and Cooperation