Over the past three decades, Latin America has undergone a major process of diversification in its international relations, making it easier for the countries of the region to develop foreign policies that are more autonomous and more focused on the challenges posed by an international society that is increasingly interdependent and global.

The traditional relationship with the US set the entire Latin American agenda and in general involved important ties of dependency. But now, added to this are growing and increasingly important links with the Asia-Pacific region, fledgling relations with Africa, consolidated ties with Europe and increasingly deep links with Spain and Portugal, based in each case on motives of greatly varying nature.

The purpose of this paper is not to analyse these international relations in their entirety, nor to carry out a detailed study of them, which would exceed the scope of this project. Rather, the goal is to offer a series of general observations on one dimension of Latin America’s international relations. Specifically, it is the currently deadlocked state and the future prospects for the region’s relations with the EU, with an eye to the Sixth Summit between Latin America, the Caribbean and the EU. It will be held under the Spanish Presidency of the EU, in the first half of 2010.

It must not be forgotten that Spain, even as it negotiated to join the EU, before its actual entry on 1 January 1986, played an important role in the development and deepening of the relations between the two regions undertaken up to the present, becoming the main reference point for articulating EU policies towards Latin America (Arenal, 2006, p. 316-318, and 2008, p. 47-49). From that perspective, it makes sense to consider the possibility that, under the Spanish Presidency, relations with the region could enter a new phase.

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