The Spanish Minister of Justice, Rafael Catalá; the Vice President of the Republic of Costa Rica, Ana Helena Chacón; and the head of Latin American and Caribbean regional programmes of the European Commission, Marc Litvine closed the annual conference of EUROsociAL, the European Union cooperation programme for increasing social cohesion in Latin America.

Catalá stressed “the fact that Europe and Latin America share common values and are building their relationship based on these. This conference was a demonstration of this, as it addressed issues such as social protection, employment, health equity, access to justice, territorial convergence, the fight against corruption and the fiscal covenant, which are guiding principles and objectives for both regions on which better and more harmonious economic and trade relations are being built”.

During the four days of the conference, the Euro-Latin American participants had the opportunity to learn the results of the EUROsociAL Programme for improving social cohesion in Latin American societies. The achievements highlighted included the creation of Houses of Rights for vulnerable populations, specifically women victims of violence, in Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Costa Rica and Paraguay; improvements in care systems for the elderly in Chile; and promotion of tax education for making taxes more equitable and closer to citizens.

FIIAPP is the Spanish and European institution that leads EUROsociAL. At the start of the conference, the European Commission announced a third phase of this cooperation programme, under the name EUROsociAL+, with a budget of 32 million euros for 2016-2020.