LatinNews Daily - 21 May 2026

*António Costa, the president of the European Council, has paid a visit to Guatemala where he met Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arévalo, in what is the first ever official visit by a European Council president to Guatemala. According to a joint press release, the two highlighted the strengthening of relations between Guatemala and the European Union (EU), “especially in terms of political cooperation, trade and investment”, singling out the European ‘Global Gateway’ strategy, which aims to drive investment in green and digital opportunities. An EU press release notes the EU has allocated €193m (US$224m) in bilateral grant funding towards cooperation with Guatemala for 2021-2027, complemented by programmes and blended finance under the Global Gateway. The two also restated their commitment to the Association Agreement between Central America and the EU, which focuses on political dialogue, cooperation and trade, and was signed in June 2012 by the EU and the Central American states (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama). According to the EU, since the provisional application of the agreement’s trade pillar in 2013, bilateral trade has grown significantly – more than doubling over the past years. The two leaders also “reaffirmed shared values such as democracy, the rule of law, human rights and multilateralism”. This comes as the EU, a strong ally of anti-corruption reformist President Arévalo, sent an observer mission to oversee the recent reappointment processes in the attorney general’s office (AG), constitutional court, electoral court, and rectorship of the Universidad de San Carlos (Usac) – all considered crucial to Arévalo’s 2023 campaign pledge to root out institutional corruption. With the recent appointment of Gabriel Estuardo García Luna as Guatemala’s new attorney general, replacing the discredited María Consuelo Porras, considered a key advance with regard to Arévalo’s agenda, yesterday García Luna fired Rafael Curruchiche, the head of the AG’s special anti-impunity unit (Feci), a Porras ally, who, like his former boss, has been blacklisted for corruption by the US and EU, among others.

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