FOR A time yesterday the volcanic ash cloud which closed Irish and other European airports threatened the flight carrying Taoiseach Brian Cowen to Spain for the sixth European Union-Latin American and Caribbean (EU-LAC) summit. But the restrictions were lifted and he was able to take off on time for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Madrid.
The Taoiseach is expected to hold talks with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain, which holds the current EU presidency, as well as with some 60 world leaders. They will discus the global financial crisis, which has brought Greece to the brink of bankruptcy, threatened other peripheral states and has seen the euro sink to its lowest level in four years.
Climate change – how to fight poverty, particularly in Haiti, where an earthquake took some 200,000 lives earlier this year – and closer trade links between the regions, notably the Caribbean countries and those of the Mercosur nations (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil), are also on the agenda.
This year the LAC summit, which takes place every two years, has been timed to coincide with the annual Hispano-Latin American meeting which is held in a different Spanish or Portuguese-speaking country each year.
Presidents of the majority of the Latin American countries – many of them former Spanish colonies – are attending.
Until his retirement, the Cuban leader Fidel Castro was a regular and active participant. Although his successor and brother, Raúl Castro, has declined the invitation for the second year running, the controversial questions of closer links with Cuba and human rights violations in the island are likely to be discussed.
Another absentee will be President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who has cited “a clash of diary dates”. But he probably remembers the occasion three years ago when King Juan Carlos ordered him to “shut up” when he repeatedly interrupted Mr Zapatero.
Britain’s new prime minister, David Cameron, will be represented by the foreign minister William Hague.
The leaders were invited to a formal banquet in the royal palace last night, the first time Crown Prince Felipe and his wife, Princess Letizia, hosted an official state event.
This is the first opportunity for many of the leaders to meet Sebastian Piñera, the new president of Chile. Yesterday he thanked European governments for their generosity after the recent earthquake and subsequent tsunami which devastated large areas of Chile.
President Piñera praised Mr Zapatero’s tough austerity measures aimed at cutting Spain’s huge deficit, which the prime minister warned “will not go away on its own” and which Mr Piñera compared to a slimming diet “which will only work if we eat less and take more exercise”.
Climate change and the melting of mountain glaciers are causing serious damage to many Latin American countries and threatened the livelihood of tens of thousands .
European Council president Herman van Rompuy announced a new climate summit to be held in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of the year when it is hoped to progress the Kyoto accord.