Mr President, by including this item on the agenda within a very difficult international context and coinciding with the visit of President Fox and a large delegation of Mexican parliamentarians, we have wanted to stress this Parliament’s interest in relations with the countries of Latin America on the eve of the Summit. I agree with Mr Patten’s view that this type of meeting has been criticised because the great declarations they lead to are often not turned into concrete objectives, and I believe that in reality summits should be the ritualistic embodiment of an underlying political will which will generate the political energy necessary for the machinery to function. Our task now is to give substance to this ambitious objective of the strategic and regional partnership which the Heads of State and Government drew up in Río de Janeiro. And I agree with Mr Patten that the European Union is approaching this Summit with a series of very positive messages. Firstly – and I believe this does credit to all the political groups in this Parliament – it has a clear and ambitious report aimed at the constitution of a bi-regional partnership which attempts to create a common European Union strategy for Latin America. Secondly, it has a will which is reflected in budgetary terms, which will allow the European Union to go to Madrid with respectable sums within the 2002 budget. And thirdly, the EU has an ambitious association agreement, negotiated with Chile – for which we must thank the European Commission for its negotiation efforts and the Presidency-in-Office for its support – and is holding negotiations with Mercosur which must also be given new impetus, because it is at moments of crisis that this type of agreement can be more necessary than ever. The European Community must also present, through the Commission, guidelines for negotiation, for new agreements with the Andean Community and Central America which, in the opinion of this House, must provide – I am not saying at this moment – the prospect of a partnership, as the President of the European Parliament has said in a recent letter to the President of the Commission; and also an ambitious Commission programme which includes a whole series of initiatives which, although they do not imply a single euro more, are very important in relation to the creation of this bi-regional association. Amongst all this praise, Commissioner, please allow me to make a small critical point: you will understand that we consider the reduction of EUR 30 million which the Commission has proposed in its preliminary draft budget for 2003 not to be the best calling card to present to the Summit at the moment. Having said this, I believe it is important that the Summit should take account of the fact that the great and profound social inequalities in Latin America may jeopardise the progress made through so much effort in the fields of co-existence and democratisation and that therefore we must send a very clear message of support for normalisation and democratic consolidation in countries such as Venezuela and Argentina, the inclusion of FARC and the LN on the list of terrorist organisations, also the will to normalise relations with Cuba, on the basis of the principles of the democratic clause, and its gradual incorporation into the Cotonou Agreement. And I believe it is essential for the European Union enthusiastically to create an ambitious global relationship with Latin America so that the United States is not the only protagonist, since they do not ask too many questions about the degree of regional integration in Latin America. Therefore, Mr President, I hope that this Summit will send a clear message, at a clearly-defined level, that we want to create a common area which will take the form of a great transatlantic axis to provide a direction for relations between the European Union and Latin America for the coming millennium. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE