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How an Irish delegation room in Brussels hosted a small piece of history this week

Latin American dignitaries found a green room for manoeuvre at Ireland’s base of operations in Brussels

Alberto Fernandez, Argentina's president (left), Ralph Gonsalves, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines' prime minister, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, during the European Union and Celac summit in Brussels on Tuesday. Photograph: Simon Wohlfahrt/Bloomberg

Naomi O’Leary's face
Naomi O’Leary
Thu Jul 20 2023 - 05:00

The Colombian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan leaders walked into the Irish delegation room.

It sounds like the set-up for a joke, but it was actually the moment that helped break a deadlock that threatened to derail the European Union’s first summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) in eight years.

Much store had been placed in the Brussels gathering as a way to boost the regions’ ties, which one delegate described as having “withered”.

The shock to the EU of discovering unreliability in supply chains and ambivalence among the developing world about the invasion of Ukraine taught the continent that it needs as many friends as it can get.

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So 33 Latin American and Caribbean leaders were hosted in Brussels for discussions with their 27 EU counterparts this week to find areas of common ground.

The talks focused on producing a joint declaration setting out the issues on which the two sides agree and where they intend to collaborate, from addressing climate change to increasing investment.

Then a disagreement over Ukraine threatened to derail it all.

The EU countries’ wish to include a statement condemning the invasion of Ukraine ran up against opposition from Russia’s traditional allies in the region: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Naming Russia as the aggressor was out. A reference to “war against Ukraine” was nixed, and a suggested compromise of “war in Ukraine” pleased no one.

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The issue was chewed over for hours as 60 countries haggled over drafts, each pushing for the inclusion of their own preoccupations ranging from the impact of sargassum algae on the Caribbean to “the question of sovereignty over the Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands”.

The text began to be dubbed a “Christmas tree”, the Brussels nickname for texts that have been thusly adorned.

But when leaders arrived for day two of the summit, the standoff over Ukraine was unbroken and it seemed possible the summit could turn out to be a diplomatic flop with no joint declaration at all.

“We cannot rewrite history, the fact is that Russia aggressed Ukraine, it’s a fact and we cannot say now that it’s a ‘Ukrainian war’, this is not the reality,” Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel thundered on his way in.

“Sometimes it’s better to have no conclusions at all than to have language that doesn’t mean anything,” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar remarked.

Some Latin American states were keen to emphasise that it was only a small minority who were being the awkward squad.

“We are very sorry for the situation really. We are very surprised that there are members of our group that oppose any resolution concerning the war in Ukraine,” the Chilean foreign minister Alberto van Klaveren Stork told journalists. “We think it’s a war of aggression, that’s the position of Chile.”

The row rumbled on into lunch as leaders gathered for a meal on the ninth floor of the Europa Building, with the summit threatening to run over.

At this point the Colombian president Gustavo Petro took the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan delegates aside to try to break the deadlock.

President Petro, Nicaragua’s foreign minister Denis Moncada Colindres, and Venezuela’s executive vice-president Delcy Rodriguez left the lunch and walked down a corridor where they happened upon Ireland’s delegation room – the base of Irish operations during such summits.

Startled Irish officials agreed at once as the three dignitaries asked if they could borrow the room.

The three sat down for negotiations, a map of Ireland from 1570 gazing down from the wall.

Word began to get around the summit that “Ireland was hosting” efforts to break the impasse.

European Council president Charles Michel joined the talks, and soon afterwards the four returned to the lunch for a dessert of baked nectarines and coffee.

Two hours later, the EU and Celac leaders emerged triumphant to say they had a deal.

“We express deep concern on the ongoing war against Ukraine, which continues to cause immense human suffering,” their joint declaration read.

“War against Ukraine” had made it in. On the declaration’s final page, a sentence in italics revealed how the impasse was broken.

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“This Declaration was endorsed by all countries with one exception due to its disagreement with one paragraph,” the addendum noted.

It was a reference to the last holdout, Nicaragua, which opposed the paragraph about Ukraine until the end – but ultimately had been persuaded not to block the conclusions as a whole.

The two regions agreed not to leave it so long this time, and to meet again in 2025, a small piece of history having played out in the Irish delegation room.

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