Latin America and European ‘Soft Power’ Geopolitics

The Treaty of Rome (1957) and the acquis communautaire give the impression that the EU is broadly aware of responsible political and economic policies. However, these gospels applied so stringently to aspiring Member States don’t seem to be a guide for relations with Latin America. The policy, if there is one, instead seems a mixture of patronisation, appeasement, confusion and even encouragement of unacceptable behaviour. Brussels ably diagnosed Vladimír Meèiar’s and Leonid Kuchma’s regimes but fails to do the same across the ocean. Moreover, the behaviour of the chavista axis countries contradicts more recent EU official policies. The EU Commission states that the main goals include the fight against corruption and ‘contributing to the development of a stable and predictable framework to help the Latin American countries attract more European investment’ (EU Commission 2005).

This Document argues for refocusing EU engagement in Latin America away from appeasement of the emerging illiberal regimes and towards active support for liberal forces, consistent with the EU’s founding philosophy, economic goals and geopolitical future.

Fredo Arias-King is founder of the academic quarterly Demokratizatsiaya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, published since 1992 in Washington, DC. He is an analyst with two regional think tanks: CEON (Miami) and CADAL (Buenos Aires). He is author of the book Transiciones: La experiencia de Europa del Este.