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III LATIN AMERICA – EUROPE MEETING,
Mr. Tomás Abadía Vicente Principal Administrator of the direction of Foreign Relations of the European Commission
The Latin American Meeting on Social Corporative Responsibility took place on the 29th of February in Casa de América. Social Corporative Responsibility is a very important issue in a moment of a deep presence of investments and administrative concessions in Spain and Latin America. For the companies and European institutions this implies a deep cultural change calling for a considerable improvement of business image in such important areas as the environment, human rights, social and consumer aspects, etc. But above all these considerations, it implies a strategic approach of the companies that leads to new manners of cooperation with beneficiary countries. According to Mr. Tomás Abadía, Principal Administrator of the direction of Foreign Relations of the European Commission, “Europe is the principal source of investment in MERCOSUR and Andean America, and we maintain a very important position in Mexico and Central America. Our Trade has been intensified notably in the last years and the negotiation processes for Association Agreements continue with MERCOSUR. Today the second negociation round with Central America has taken place with Central America in Brussels and we are now in the third one with the Andean Community. The Agreement with Mexico and Chile has encouraged trade and investment notoriously. Specially, Spain has developed a very ambitious policy of establishment of investments in Latin America, and at present, the financial entities, the building companies, and the energy and telecommunication sectors have established themselves permanently to support the internal efforts of Latin American governments towards the path of sustainable development. We are faced with a situation that can facilitate new forms of international cooperation between multinational companies, multilateral organisms and national authorities of cooperation. The award of administrative concessions and investments can originate new projects of cooperation that would improve substantially the image of the Spanish and European company in the destination country. Sometimes disruptions have been produced that later on have been corrected, but the most important thing for the future is that the companies, by themselves, have a very valuable instrument of specific cooperation that can change the present culture. All effort oriented towards the improvement of the habitat of indigenous communities, the access to natural resources, the improvement of environmental conditions, the strengthening of human right, will originate an osmosis between the investor country and the recipient one and a profound change in the business culture”. Representatives of the private sector that accompanied us today in the Meeting, such as Iberdrola, Telefónica, and ACS Foundation explained their experiences in such an important area of international cooperation.
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