The signing of the agreement took place at the premises of the EUI’s School of Transnational Governance (STG), in Palazzo Buontalenti, where the Secretary General of the Organization of American States and former Uruguayan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Almagro, who is also a member of the STG External Advisory Board, was welcomed by EUI President, Professor Renaud Dehousse, and the Director of the STG, Professor Alexander Stubb.
The agreement will enhance their collaboration in the fields of democracy, human rights, development, security and transnational governance. In this respect, the EUI and GS/ OAS will jointly promote cooperative research as well as facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas between policymaking spheres in the Americas and Europe.
Under the agreement, the two institutions will work together in the development and support of joint activities, including: promoting institutional exchanges, organising conferences, symposia and meetings, creating joint research programmes and a policy dialogue fellowship programme, as well as implementing information exchange and executive education training courses in policy-relevant areas.
The two institutions will also facilitate intellectual collaboration and international understanding through the establishment of scholarships, internships and visitor’s programmes that would benefit citizens of OAS Member States as well as STG Master students, students at the new Master of Research in Economics and PhD researchers, in addition to faculty and staff at the EUI.
The OAS is the world’s oldest regional organisation, dating back to the First International Conference of American States, held in Washington, DC, USA, from October 1889 to April 1890. Today, the OAS brings together all 35 independent states of the Americas and constitutes the main political, juridical, and social governmental forum in the Hemisphere. In addition, it has granted permanent observer status to 69 states, as well as to the European Union.