Abstract
Latin America is a huge geographical and cultural space that faces many serious difficulties in development because of high social inequalities, drug traffic and democracies that are often young and fragile. Because of these important issues, and as Latin America is a potentially important economic partner and is linked to the European culture, history and identity because of its colonial past -mainly under the Spanish and the Portuguese Empires-, one expects the European Union to play an important role of the there. However, since the independence of Latin America, the United States has considered Latin America to be under its "sphere of influence", part of its security policy and rejected any kind of European involvement there. This was proclaimed in the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Even though the United States wants to remain the main foreign actor in Latin America, things have changed today, as European countries are not imperialists anymore and appear to be a support for stability and democracy.
