Declaration of parliamentarians of the progressive sectors of Latin America and Europe, members of the Bureau of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EUROLAT), at meeting in Bogotá on November 2 and 3, 2021:

1. Emphasises that the Covid-19 pandemic has made visible the important social inequalities that exist in the European and Latin American states due to a neoliberal economic model that has concentrated wealth in the hands of a few, dispossessing the working majority and destroying our natural environment. We reaffirm that this economic model is incompatible with sustainability and the future of our planet, and we salute the initiatives and processes that in different countries promote alternative models of sustainable development and social justice.

2. Notes that the Covid-19 pandemic has once again highlighted the need to ensure inclusive and universal health systems and that this is only possible through free public health systems. The pandemic has made it clear that only through the protection of all people without exclusions can we protect ourselves as societies, and therefore states have the obligation to guarantee access to the right to health for everyone.

3. Reaffirms that states have the obligation to guarantee access to other rights that are fundamental for life, such as access to drinking water both for human consumption and for irrigation and the various activities that require this vital element, as well as access to decent housing, among others. We condemn the fact that the fortunes of the richest people on the planet have continued to grow during the pandemic while millions of people are deprived of these rights.

4. Insists on the need for states to have a productive capacity that allows them to face the needs of the people in a sovereign manner, and we urge governments to learn from the situations generated during the pandemic in which we have seen how states were unable to produce and supply medical equipment and other essential goods. Thus, it is necessary to reverse the offshoring policies facilitated by neoliberal policies. We insist on the need for the strategic sectors of the economy, essential for the guarantee of rights such as health, to be under public control.

5. Condemns the policies of blockade and sanctions that hinder the development of states and seriously harm their workers and peoples, and that during the pandemic have placed obstacles to or made impossible the supply of medicines and sanitary materials by the countries that suffer them, and demand their immediate lifting. We value the example provided by Cuba that, despite a blockade that has increased costs by more than 50%, has been able to develop three vaccines against Covid-19.

6. Demands an immediate lifting of patents on Covid-19 vaccines and treatments in order to put an end to the existing obstacles to universal access to them. We recall that the WHO has stated that Covid-19 vaccines should be considered a global public good and therefore their production should be democratized in all countries.

7. Stresses the need for the European Union, and the governments of its member states and Latin America to guarantee the recognition of all vaccines shown to be effective and the homologation of vaccination certificates in the different countries.

8. Demands the continuity of the integral revision of the international financing system so that the easing of the public debt of the countries most affected by the pandemic allows and promotes the revitalization of their economies, generating development opportunities for the most vulnerable sectors of the population.

Adolfo Mendoza (Bolivia)
Arlindo Chinaglia (Brazil)
Adolfo Rodríguez Saá (Argentina)
Julia Perié (Argentina)
Sandra Pereira (Portugal)
Ricardo Velázquez (Mexico)