1- The literature review has led to identify two main risks: first, confusing the EU with its Member States; second, ending up suggesting changes in the EU policy towards LAC that, in fact, imply changes in the EU Treaties. In order to avoid these risks, EULAC Focus has developed a new approach that gives a central role to the identification of the “legal basis” for EU’s action as well as to their budgetary framework.
- The Union has no sovereignty (in singular, nor a “general competence”. It only has specific competences, attributed to it by specific provisions of the Treaties: The competence on common foreign and security policy attributed by the Treaty on EU and the 28 competences conferred by the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU.
- EU policies are an edifice assembling two different types of bricks: the legal and the budgetary, so subject to the periodicity of the Multiannual Financial Framework.
2- EULAS Focus has also identified four "Cross-cutting topics/pathways" (mobility, inequality, diversity and sustainability) that contribute to a better understanding of EU-LAC relations by allowing
- to identify significant similarities and differences;
- to identify where and in what sense one region can learn from the other;
- to give a more operational meaning to expressions like “strategic partnership”.
3- The “transversal” vision of the EU and its system of external relations and the identification of the 4 cross-cutting issues have allowed a coherent integration of the 3 thematic WPs dimensions achieving a very challenging “matricial” research structure.
Potential Impacts . Because of its content and specific objectives, EULAC Focus socio-economic impact must be indirect, through the effects of its policy recommendations, that directly address relevant areas of economic and social policy. In the economic area, with the following 3 strategies:
- Launching “structuring actions” (Digitalisation for social development, Smart Specialization and Collaboration on regulatory issues).
- Giving an international and a LAC projection to the European Institute for Innovation and Technology and the 8 very ambitious Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), involving Universities and Research Centres, Industry, Public Administrations and Social actors.
- Cooperation in the area of Creative Industries
In the area of social policies, EULAC Focus recommendations would have a direct impact: the convergence in the approaches to social policy in the EU and its Member States (in the favourable context of CEPAL-ECLAC / OECD / EC-DG DEVCO new approach to development). In this framework, 3 specific areas have been studied:
- Anti-poverty policies with focus on money transfer policies
- Inclusion of migrants:
- Territorial cohesion.
