The Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) ended on Saturday evening with a key message of cohesion, strengthening the path towards regional integration and rapprochement between the two Atlantic coasts. The XXVIII. Meetings of the 22 countries of the community showed the vocation of this forum compared to other international conferences that are more constrained by the corset of diplomacy. The debate revealed deep ideological clashes and there were even accusations between Latin American countries. But the essence was the consensus of all members on a set of instruments that will strengthen the alliance. The so-called Santo Domingo Declaration adopts three of the four planned documents: on climate change, on food security and on digitization. Peace, even without direct mention of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the serious crisis in Haiti and migration were other fundamental challenges.
The Ibero-American Secretary General, Chilean diplomat Andrés Allamand, called for “maintaining Ibero-America as a privileged space for dialogue, political articulation, consensus and cooperation”. Under this umbrella, discussion between Presidents, Heads of State, Vice Presidents and Foreign Ministers revealed the idea that dialogue can flourish and unity can be tested despite differences.
XXVIII. Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State Mónica González Islas
At the summit, for example, an important agreement on the reform of an international financial architecture and access to credit failed due to the resistance of Cuba, whose President Miguel Díaz-Canel took action against the “bubbles of financial capitalism”. However, the community of Iberoamerican countries decided to continue efforts in view of the next summit on November 29, 2024 in Quito, issuing a brief statement highlighting “the need for a structural reform of the financial architecture that will facilitate a greater flow of resources for sustainable development and expands the barriers to access that Iberoamerican countries have in terms of funding”. The text questions “credit overstretching” and commits to introducing “innovative financial instruments with conditions that facilitate sustainable debt”.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was another of the discussions that indirectly flew over the summit. The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, openly condemned this in his speech, calling it “unacceptable”. However, it was a unanimous and unequivocal position in a forum attended by countries such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and El Salvador in addition to Cuba, not to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offensive at the UN – a difficult task. tedious. So everything was in a minimum pact through the references to peace in the international arena. In it, all declare their willingness to work for “a complete, just and lasting peace throughout the world” while “respecting the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, including the principles of sovereign equality and the territorial integrity of States, which will additionally help to end the negative effects of wars, including loss of life, food, financial, energy and environmental security crises”.
The way to help Haiti
The humanitarian crisis in Haiti, a country bordering the Dominican Republic, cornered by criminal gangs and mired in corruption, misery and statelessness, was an inevitable urgency of the Santo Domingo meeting. The situation, exacerbated by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, prompted the local government, led by Luis Abinader, to ask for assistance. “There is no other way to help Haiti than to go and pacify Haiti,” he said. The President of Costa Rica threw a cape with a call for international responsibility during the debate. The paragraph included in the final declaration recognizes the need for multilateral mobilization, although it makes no mention of a peacekeeping force. “We call on the community and international organizations to unite to find a way out of this complex crisis, based on the principles of solidarity and international cooperation, with the consent and participation of Haiti,” the text reads.
Luis Abinader, President of the Dominican Republic and King of Spain Felipe VI.Mónica González Islas
The summit was attended by 13 delegations, led by their heads of state and government – in the case of Spain and Portugal they were represented twice, by the king, the president and their prime minister respectively – three vice-presidents, five foreign ministers and only Mexico delegated the defense of its Positions to a Director General of the State Department. The most significant absence was that of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose government did not send the chancellor to other international meetings either. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva apologized for planning a trip to China that was eventually postponed due to pneumonia. And Nicolás Maduro, as usual, kept the unknown about his participation until the end, which was eventually canceled due to suspected Covid-19 contagion.
Migrations, the challenge that affects everyone
All leaders present and absent must face a challenge that challenges the entire region on a daily basis: migration. Most of the more than seven million Venezuelans who left the country in search of opportunities settled in Latin American countries, mainly Colombia, Peru, Chile and Ecuador. Between Colombia and Panama, hundreds of people risk their lives every day crossing the Darien Jungle, one of the most inhospitable and dangerous areas on earth. Thousands of migrants are massing on Mexico’s southern and northern borders as the United States Supreme Court pending a decision on so-called Title 42, a measure allowing for hot repatriations to Mexico. The Santo Domingo Declaration advocates for “safe, orderly and regular migration”, but at the same time calls for the search for “mechanisms that support adequate management of migration flows, agile and accessible migration regularization processes, ensuring the socio-economic integration of migrants for host communities and the coordinated fight against organized cross-border crime’. Under these conditions, a forum on migration will take place in Ecuador in the second half of this year.
Borrell: a “key year” for relations between Europe and Latin America
As a special guest, the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, attended the XXVIII. Iberoamerican Summit. Borrell recalled in his speech that 2023, which coincides in the second half of the year with the Spanish EU presidency, will be a “key year” for relations between Brussels and Latin America. He pointed out that both the meeting in Santo Domingo and the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) planned for next July “send a strong message and show our desire for greater cooperation”. “It will be the first summit between the EU and Celac since 2015. We did something wrong that so much time has passed without sharing a common reflection,” he said.