On 17 and 18 July, Left MEPs will participate in this year’s People’s Summit, Cumbre de los Pueblos.

The event, co-organised by Left MEP Manu Pineda (Izquierda Unida, Spain) takes place on the occasion of the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Leaders will meet in Brussels, to discuss “strategic partnerships” in areas such as trade, development and climate change.

As these discussions should include the people they impact, the People’s Summit is an event organised simultaneously that is open to all and seeks to:

• promote an alternative model of development, cooperation and integration that is more just, more solidarity-based and more sustainable;
• foster fair relations between the peoples and governments of Latin America and the Caribbean with the peoples and governments of the European Union, based on the principles of respect for international law, non-interference, sovereignty and self-determination; and
• strengthen ties between grassroots movements, trade unions, solidarity groups, migrant communities, associations and political forces and figures of both continents.

On 17 July, Left MEP Maria Eugenia Palop, (Podemos, Spain) will join a panel on decolonisation and depatriarchalisation.

On 18 July, Left MEPs MEP Marc Botenga (PTB-PVDA, Belgium), Sandra Pereira (PCP, Portugal), Mick Wallace (I4C, Ireland) and Manu Pineda (Izquierda Unida, Spain) will participate in the panel: new forms of dirty war: coups, lawfare, disinformation, sanctions and economic war.

The event takes place in VUB Main Campus, Bd de la Plaine 2, 1050 Ixelles and the full programme and registration details are available here.

There will be a solidarity protest at Place du Luxembourg for the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples, against blockades and sanctions, and for Latin America as a zone of peace.

In the evening, a meeting will take place between Latin American heads of state and ministers in room 3C50, Paul Henri Spaak Building of the European Parliament.

Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina, Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba, Luis Arce, President of Bolivia as well as Alicia Bárcena, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico and Yván Gil, Foreign Minister of Mexico will attend. Jean Luc Mélenchon will also attend.

MEPs Manu Pineda and Sandra Pereira will moderate and there will be interventions from Marc Botenga and Leïla Chaibi (La France Insoumise). Access is restricted, but the event will be livestreamed.

Journalists can register here.

There will be EN-ES-FR interpretation.