Petro Announces Colombia’s Readiness for CELAC–EU Summit

Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that the city of Santa Marta is ready to host participants of the 4th Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU).

The meeting, to be held on November 9–10, will focus on the Triple Transition —energy, digital, and environmental— aimed at generating real solutions to address climate change, technological gaps, and production challenges.

According to Petro, the gathering will serve to “consolidate a great alliance based on the decarbonization of the economy and the construction of a global democracy.”

In reference to the summit, the president stressed that science must guide politics.

“Amid the falling missiles, lighting Diogenes’ lantern is necessary,” he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account.

Petro also warned that external forces hostile to peace in the Americas have sought to undermine the meeting.

“Of course, in the new fossil and anti-democratic geopolitics, there are attempts to prevent peoples who desire freedom and democracy from uniting,” he cautioned.

Among the objectives of the summit are the strengthening of multilateralism, effective cooperation, and the creation of a two-year bi-regional roadmap featuring concrete projects in renewable energy, inclusive digitalization, ecosystem protection, health innovation, agroecology, biotechnology, and human mobility.

Topics to be discussed include the promotion of decarbonization, regional electrical interconnection with EU support, inclusive digitalization to close technological divides and enhance productive transformation, climate financing, and the protection of strategic ecosystems.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, discussions will also cover cooperation in climate adaptation and disaster risk mitigation, reducing dependency on pharmaceutical imports, and advancing technology transfer initiatives in health, agroecological models, and sustainable value chains, among other areas.

CELAC, currently chaired pro tempore by Colombia, is an intergovernmental mechanism for dialogue and political coordination made up of 33 countries, working on the basis of consensus and shared action toward common goals.