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Shaping Europe’s digital future
  • NEWS ARTICLE
  • Publication 10 November 2025

At the CELAC-EU Summit, Europe and Latin America chart a common course for a fair partnership

In Santa Marta (Colombia), the EU and 33 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) discussed their cooperation to strengthen democracy and multilateralism, drive the green, digital, and social transitions, expand trade opportunities and step up joint action on security.

Two businessmen in suits shake hands, their arms overlapping with a glowing, transparent blue globe overlaid with a digital network of lines and numbers.

GettyImages © metamorworks

The Summit concluded with a political declaration and a roadmap setting out concrete actions on trade, climate, energy, digital transformation, food security, health, education, research and culture.

Joint initiatives include:

  • Stronger networks and smarter tech: A newly launched EU-LAC Supercomputing Network for AI links regional computing centres across both regions, with €15 million from the EU, Spain and Brazil. In parallel, the BELLA programme will expand through the EllaLink fibre-optic cable between Europe and Brazil, bringing high-speed connections also to Costa Rica and Guatemala by the end of 2025 and reaching Central America, Peru and the Caribbean in 2026. The EIB and the CAF will also leverage up to €864 million and provide CELAC countries with a regionally owned satellite, bringing digital access to remote areas, including the Amazon and Caribbean islands.
  • Reinforced disaster preparedness: The EU and Caribbean nations are launching Stormwatch, a new partnership using EU satellite data and supercomputing to strengthen disaster preparedness in the face of worsening extreme weather. The initiative will provide advanced forecasting tools to Caribbean meteorologists, backed by the EU's Copernicus Earth observation program and Destination Earth digital modeling. A new Copernicus Competence Centre will be set up in Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology to enhance local climate monitoring and training. These are some of the tools contributing to implement the EU-LAC Memorandum on Disaster Risk Preparedness and Management. The devastating impact of Hurricane Melissa underscored the critical importance of working on preparedness and disaster resilience.

Read the full press release