ABSTRACT
To speak of a relationship between the European Union on the one hand and Latin America and the Caribbean on the other (hereinafter EU–LAC) suggests a symmetry between the two partners that is difficult to substantiate. Actually, the EU is a treaty-based organization with legal personality and exclusive competences vested in common authorities, while the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, as for its Spanish acronym) is an informal forum fully deprived of legal structure, headquarters, competences and budget. While the (now 28) European heads of state jointly integrate the European Council, a top EU decision-making body, their 33 Latin American counterparts participate in nothing even remotely similar. Therefore, the biennial EU–LAC summits that have taken place since 1999 – and all things related – may bring together two regions, but not two organizations. If this distinction is relevant in several issue areas, it is even more so in the security and defence realm, where organization is crucial for decision-making, monitoring and enforcement.
