MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

See you in Salamanca next year.

The Ibero-American summit hosted by Costa Rica but which will be remembered for the absence of six presidents and a seism, closed this Saturday with a fourteen points communiqué committing the region to address the challenges of bettering education systems, improving trade relations mainly with the European Union and creating a permanent Secretariat.

The summit was held under the umbrella of "Education for progress", but also included discussions about combating terrorism and poverty, multilateralism in international affairs, exchanging debt documents for investment in education, Haiti, farm export subsidies by rich countries and as usual a clause related to Malvinas/Falklands and Argentina's claim over the Falklands/Malvinas islands.

The King of Spain Juan Carlos I in his closing speech called for a greater contribution in fighting the current curses of humanity, poverty, injustice, corruption, human rights abuse, terrorism, organized crime which can only be addressed from "a multilateral perspective and action".

President of Costa Rica Able Pacheco who acted as host of the summit called on Spain and Portugal, "our sisters in Europe" to help turn the "continent of hope" into a "continent of fruitful results".

Juan Carlos I called upon all delegates to make the San Jose proposals reality by November 2005, when the next Iberoamerican summit will be taking place in Salamanca, Spain, in coincidence with the thirtieth anniversary of Juan Carlos regal proclamation.

It was also decided that in the coming first half of 2005, Iberoamerican Foreign Affairs ministers are scheduled to meet in Portugal when they will be naming the first Iberoamerican Secretary General, a post which will be occupied by the current president of the Interamerican Development Bank, Enrique Iglesias from Uruguay.

The annex fourteen points of the San Jose Declaration included among others, support for Haiti; condemnation of the killing in Venezuela of a special prosecutor involved in the inquiry into the failed coup of April 2002; request for an end to EU farm subsidies; promotion of air transport; support for Costa Rica and its anti corruption campaign; judicial reform; support for the Kyoto agreement; promoting a policy of efficient ports and the need for a resumption "as soon as possible" of negotiations between UK and Argentina to find a solution to the sovereignty dispute in the South Atlantic over the Malvinas, following the UN and OAS resolutions and the "principle of territorial integrity".

Actually six quiet influential presidents were absent, most of them participating in the APEC summit, George Bush; Vicente Fox from Mexico; Alejandro Toledo from Peru; Ricardo Lagos from Chile, plus Lula da Silva from Brazil and Hugo Chavez from Venezuela. Argentine president Nestor Kirchner only spent a few hours and returned before the closing ceremony.

As to the seism which was quiet serious since several people were killed in Costa Rica, it didn't interfere with the summit because it occurred at night and couldn't even interrupt the King of Spain's sleep, "I thought it was train traffic and kept sleeping". See you next year in Salamanca.