“Challenges of Multilateralism and Association Agreements” was the theme of the third edition of this original IPDAL initiative.

The third forum “Portugal – Central America and the Caribbean” was held in a hybrid format, thus allowing to bring together not only the sub-region’s ambassadors residing in Lisbon, but also non-resident diplomats.

In partnership with the EU-LAC Foundation , IPDAL brought together Portuguese institutions, companies and analysts with multiple countries from Central America and the Caribbean, and the priorities for the future development of bi-regional relations were explained.

The initiative was attended by Adrián Bonilla, executive director of the Foundation, who highlighted EU-LAC’s efforts to review and promote existing partnership agreements, with a view to both internal development and the strategic autonomy of countries in the subregion . Bonilla highlighted the importance of investment and trade relations with the European Union, in addition to the historical cooperation framework with a demonstrated capacity to further enhance existing contacts. In this sense, the Foundation’s executive director recalled that despite there being a perception of loss of European relevance in the region, Europe continues to be the main source of direct investment in Central America and the Caribbean.

After the presentation of a report by the EU-LAC Foundation on “challenges of Multilateralism and Association Agreements”, the various ambassadors had the opportunity to convey their priorities and challenges in the context of relations with the European Union and with Portugal in particular. In view of these interventions, the common desire of the ambassadors of the Central American and Caribbean countries to deepen cooperation relations with Portugal became evident, highlighting the importance given to multilateralism, as a general framework for relationships and dispute resolution, and , in particular, to cooperation initiatives in the fight against the pandemic caused by Covid-19, namely through the calls made to expand access to vaccination for the most disadvantaged countries through the Covax initiative, in which Portugal already participates.