European Union-style bloc pitched for Latin America, Caribbean

[Gauthier]

European Union-style bloc pitched for Latin America, Caribbean
By David Alire Garcia and Noe Torres

September 19, 2021
3:39 AM CDT
Last Updated 14 hours ago

MEXICO CITY, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Latin American and Caribbean nations should aspire to a bloc like the European Union, Mexico's president and other leaders said at a summit on Saturday, in a bid to wrest influence away from the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS).

For years, a few of the region's leftist standard-bearers who attended the gathering of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) have viewed the OAS as too close to the United States, resenting in particular its exclusion of Cuba from its members states.

The host of Saturday's summit, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, told more than a dozen presidents and prime ministers at the opening ceremony that such a revamped diplomatic body could better boost the region's inequality-stricken economies as well as confront health and other crises.

"In these times, CELAC can become the principal instrument to consolidate relations between our Latin American and Caribbean nations," he said in a cavernous ballroomat Mexico's ornate national palace where leaders took turns speaking and some sparks flewbetween ideological adversaries.

"We should build in the American continent something similar to what was the economic community that was the beginning of the current European Union," the leftist Lopez Obrador said. He emphasized the need to respect national sovereignty and adhere to non-interventionist and pro-development policies.

The leaders gathered at the invitation of Lopez Obrador with a stated aim of weakening the OAS. The summit's kickoff focused attention on the region's center-left leaders, including Peru's new president, Pedro Castillo, Cuba's Miguel Diaz-Canel and Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro.

Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro pulled out from CELAC last year, criticizing it for elevating undemocratic countries. Argentina's Alberto Fernandez canceled at the last minute due to a sudden cabinet shuffle in his country.

Full article:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americ...es-2021-09-18/

[Gauthier]

The stars of the failed summit were Venezuela's Maduro and Uruguay's Luis Lacalle.

Honorary mention to Peru's president who just didn't give a shit about his appearance for a formal meeting.

[RMuller]

Only an idiot like AMLO would think of this shit

[RMuller]

The stars of the failed summit were Venezuela's Maduro

[axel.aleman]

Yo quiero una Union del Caribe Hispano: Cuba, Republica Dominicana, Puerto Rico y Panama
o sino mi imperio Panameño: Tener a Nicaragua, Costa Rica y la mitad noroccidental del Choco como colonias(la otra mitad del choco se la dejo a una Antioquia independiente)