On Wednesday, 26July, the Speaker of the Senate, Ander Gil, and the Speaker of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet, will inaugurate the 15th EuroLat plenary session, which will take place in the Senate of the Kingdom of Spain from 24-27 July.
Along with the Speakers of the Cortes Generales, the opening ceremony will be attended by the co-presidents of EuroLat: the president of the European component, MEP Javi López, and the president of the Latin American component, Colombian Congressman Óscar Darío Pérez.
At the 15th EuroLat meeting, its 150 members (75 MEPs and 75 representatives of the parliaments from Latin America and the Caribbean) will hold various committee meetings, working groups and other meetings prior to the plenary session, which will take place on 27 July.
Standing Committees
On Tuesday, 25 July, the Standing Committees meetings will take place. From 9 to 11 in the morning, the Standing Committee for Political Affairs, Security and Human Rights, and the Standing Committee for Economic, Financial and Commercial Affairs will have sessions in the Hemiciclo and in the Sala Europa of the Senate respectively.
Later, from 11:30 to 13:30, the Standing Committee for Sustainable Development, the Environment, Energy Policy, Research, Innovation and Technology will convene in the Hemiciclo and the Standing Committee for Social Affairs, Youth and Children, Human Exchanges, Education and Culture will meet in the sala Europa.
Forums and Working Groups
From 16:00 to 18:00 in the afternoon, the Euro-Latin American Women’s Forum will take place in the Senate’s Hemiciclo. Running parallel to that, in the sala Europa, the Working Group on Security, Organised and Transnational Crime and Terrorism will hold a meeting.
On Wednesday, 26 July, after the inaugural session hosted by the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the Congress of Deputies along with the EuroLat co-presidents, a press conference in the Senate’s Salón de Pasos Perdidos will be held. It is due to take place at 13:30 in the afternoon.
From 16:00 to 18:00, the Senate will host two parallel meetings. The Working Group on Food Security and Fight against Hunger will meet in the Sala Europa. In the Hemiciclo, the EuroLat Meetings with Civil Society will take place, which will be attended by the EuroLat co-vicepresidents, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and representatives from the Latin American Civil Society.
Plenary Session
The Ordinary Plenary Session of the EuroLat Assembly will take place on Thursday, 27 July. The session will begin with the election of the co-president of the Latin American component of the EuroLat Assembly, the Panamanian congressman Amado Cerrud Acevedo. It will continue with the session’s agenda, which includes the debate of the motions for resolution and recommendations adopted by the Committees that convened in the previous days and the recommendations of the Working Groups, among other matters.
The closing of the 15th Ordinary Plenary Session of the Eurolat Assembly will take place from 13:30. Statements from the Speaker of the Senate, the recently elected president of the Latin American component and the president of the European component will be made.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, and the Secretary-General of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rebeca Grynspan, will give a speech.
More about EuroLat
The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) was created in 2006 as the parliamentary offshoot of the “Bi-regional Strategic Partnership”, first established in 1999. Its aim is to strengthen cooperation between the EU, Latin America, and the Caribbean. EuroLat is made up of 150 members: 75 are deputies of the European Parliament, and the other 75 are members of the Latin American component, which is made up of regional parliaments and congresses from Latin America.
It is an international organisation that makes decisions and recommendations on issues that affect both regions. It does this through its Standing Committees, which are then considered and voted by the Assembly. The organisation is made up of two co-presidents,who preside over the Assembly, one European and one Latin American, and the Executive Bureau, which supervises activities and maintains ties. It participates in various summits, ministerial conferences and regional groups connected to the European Union – Latin American and Caribbean Bi-regional Strategic Partnership.
The official languages of the EuroLat Assembly are the official languages of the European Union, although the working languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, English and German.