The European Parliament and Latin America: Agreeing to Disagree

Grounded in previous literature on EU-LAC inter-regional and inter-parliamentary relations and parliamentary documentation from the EP’s online database and Latin American repositories, this chapter introduces the phenomenon of increasing involvement of the EP in international affairs (state of the art). It identifies the actors involved and the forms of interactions for EP-Latin American relations, including their main motivations to engage in inter-regional relations (demand side). It discusses whether EU-LAC inter-parliamentary relations have succeeded in—on the supply side—increasing the socialization of parliamentary actors from the two regions, constructing collective positions over global and inter-regional pressing challenges. At the same time, it emphasizes that on some occasions, inter-parliamentary encounters such as those within Eurolat enabled parliamentarians to voice divergent opinions regarding certain inter-regional issues.