Date of release : 24-05-2005

Policy area : General Affairs and External Relations

Event : EU-Central America (Troïka)

The 21st ministerial meeting of the San Jose Dialogue between the European Union and Central America will be chaired jointly by Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister and the current President of the Council of the European Union, and Leonidas Rosa Bautista, Honduran Foreign Minister and current President of Central America.

The San Jose Dialogue, which links the EU and Central America, was officially initated in November 1984. This political dialogue was institutionalised and widened into economic cooperation by the Luxembourg Agreement in 1985, itself replaced by a new framework agreement between the EU and Central America signed in San Salvador in 1993. Notable among the issues discussed at this 21st ministerial meeting, which will bring together the Foreign Ministers of Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, the Vice-Foreign Ministers of Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama and Belize’s ambassador to the European Union, will be Central America-EU relations and the regional integration process.