An Urgent Redifinition of Spain´s Foreign Policy towards Latin-America: Assessment and Perspectives of the last Decade of Relations with Latin-America

Abstract

The recent Latin American wake up shows a picture of regional transformation that has shaken up the basis of the traditional relations with the countries of the zone. A major change that is made manifest in the incorporation of Mexico, Argentina and Brasil to the G-20, in the sustainted growth of at least thirteen countries of the region or in the emerging leadership of Brasil. The burst in of new external competitors as China, Rusia, France or India demonstrates the oportunities that Latin America shows in the new world scenary. In the last decade Spain neither has been able to take advantage of the common elements that bind it to the Continent nor has it optimized its position as a privileged link with the European Union. Spain should urgently rethink about a logical map of priorities, goals and actions in order to define its strategical space as a political, cooperative and investing actor and as an european spokesman in a frame of bilateral and interregional relations.