High-level Lecture by Dr Lorena RUANO GÓMEZ: "The Europeanization of National Foreign Policies towards Latin America"

On Friday, 20 February 2015, Dr Lorena RUANO GÓMEZ visited the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe to hold a high-level lecture titled "The Europeanization of National Foreign Policies towards Latin America".

Dr Lorena RUANO GÓMEZ is Jean Monnet Chair and Researcher at the Center for the Research and Teaching of Economics (CIDE), Mexico.

This special lecture, organized jointly by the Mexican Embassy in Warsaw and the College of Europe, was inspired by the homonymous book, which was edited by Dr RUANO GÓMEZ and published by Routledge.

Book description:          

"Who shapes the European Union’s policy towards Latin America? How has this EU policy modified individual member states’ relations with the region?

This book provides a comparative account of seven member states’ bilateral links with Latin America since 1945, in the context of their EU membership and based on the concept of ‘Europeanization’. It illustrates how and why the main architects of this EU policy have been Spain and Germany. In contrast, Poland, Sweden and Ireland, which had little previous interaction with Latin America, have developed their current relations with that region virtually as a result of their EU membership. The United Kingdom and France lie in the middle: they have been influential in certain policy-areas and key periods in history, while they have adapted to what is done at the EU level in others.

Practitioners, established academic experts as well emerging scholars in the field bring to bear a novel combination of pioneering research and cutting edge conceptual analysis on this important but neglected area of the EU’s foreign relations." (source: link)

The lecture was chaired by Dr Irene FERNÁNDEZ MOLINA, Research Fellow at the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe.