MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lack of Latinamerican unit prevailed in Vienna summit

The European Union-Latin America summit in Vienna, with over 60 leaders from the two continents ended with very few concrete measures on trade and was dominated by the lack of unity among Latin American countries.

The most was reached in a sub-regional summit between the EU and the Andean Community (comprising Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) for the signing of a free trade agreement when the summit meets in Peru in two years' time.

In the concluding document the leaders agreed on the need to strengthen their strategic partnership for the betterment of their economic, commercial and political relations between Europe and Latin America.

However the show was stolen by Bolivia's newly elected nationalist president, Evo Morales and the controversial Venezuelan president Hugo Chaves, who made no effort to hide their hard-line approach on energy and foreign policy.

Mr Morales warned that foreign companies that lost contracts after Bolivia nationalized oil and gas resources earlier this month will not get compensation, declaring that landowners would be the next target of his radical reform agenda.

Besides Petrobras and Repsol YPF, other foreign energy companies affected by the Bolivian government decision include British Gas and Total of France.

Mr Morales the country's first indigenous population president said foreign investment was needed to cut unemployment but his country, the second poorest in Latin America, needed partners and not "bosses who exploit our resources". He ruled out dialogue on financial compensation for the energy companies affected since no "expropriation" was involved.

The Bolivian president is expected to address the Members of the European Parliament in Brussels Monday.

Mr Chavez also had the spotlight mostly for his blunt criticism of "the United States empire" and pro-market policies adopted by other Latin American states.

Chile, Mexico, Peru and Colombia, on the other hand, favour the free market and are keen to attract European investment.

Cuban vice-president Carlos Lage Davila was undiplomatic in explaining his country's views on a possible partnership between the EU and Latin America: "What was proclaimed in 1999 and is seeking consolidation, does not exist, and from our viewpoint, it is not possible under current circumstances."

On the comments of the Bolivian president, Josep Borrell Fontelles, the president of the European Parliament, said natural resources could not be valued if there wasn't the technological expertise to extract and exploit those resources, but he stressed the need to strike a balance. "Latin America does not need gifts but opportunities," Mr Borrell said.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, host of the summit said ''there are always two possibilities, either you want to open your markets or you don't want to open your markets." Open-market societies ''are better in their performance than closed, restricted structures," Schuessel said.

Mexican president Vicente Fox who favours free market policies said that populist rhetoric and the Venezuelan model ''is a false exit from poverty; that's what I think populism is. We need a policy for social development without lying to anyone".

Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo said that populist appeals would be ''a great party overnight and end in a great headache and sorrow for everyone, including the poorest". But Chávez did not relent and rejected criticism.

''Now a new era has begun in Latin America" said Chávez, ''some call it populism, trying to disfigure our beauty. But it is the . . . voice of the people that is being heard."

United Nations secretary General Kofi Annan also present at the Vienna summit called on governments to place job creation high on their macroeconomic agendas.

Mr Annan said that in Latin America high unemployment has reduced confidence in democratic institutions and in the market economy, while Caribbean democracies were suffering from unemployment-fuelled violence, drugs and the spread of HIV.

"Meanwhile, persistent unemployment in developed economies such as those in Europe, creates conditions that xenophobic and other extremist political movements seek to exploit," said the UN secretary general.

The summit's final declaration gave a nod to ''the sovereign right of countries to manage and regulate their natural resources."

But President Jacques Chirac of France spoke up for stronger trade links and urged concessions by the Latin American countries so that the Doha round of trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization can succeed.

''Trade and investment growth must lie at the heart of the relationship between our two regions". Chirac said European companies wanted to support Latin America ''based on the sovereign choices of each state and within a framework in which legal security and equity are fully ensured."

Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, likewise stressed that ''the best way forward is for an ambitious, balanced Doha round."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair emphasized that Bolivia's and Venezuela's actions ''matter enormously to all of us," given the voracious global appetite for energy. ''My only plea is that people exercise the power they've got in this regard responsibly for the whole of the international community," Blair said.