 Latin American and European heads of state met recently in Brussels and there was a lot on the agenda. At the same time, there was also a meeting of people's organizations which had, of course, a more radical agenda. What were the issues discussed? Political chaos has broken out in Thailand as the leading prime ministerial candidate has been temporarily suspended from parliament. What lies ahead for this embattled country? We will be addressing these questions and more in this episode of Daily Debrief. We first go to Brussels, which over the past few days hosted the CELAC EU heads of state summit. The first time the forum was meeting since 2015. The meeting took place at a time of great global churn, as all of you know, with the two regions on very different political trajectories. And now this was reflected in some of the moves by the EU ahead of the conference. For instance, the EU parliament passed a resolution against Cuba and this was widely condemned by many Latin American countries. Meanwhile, a parallel people's summit was also held, attended by over 1,000 delegates from progressive organizations across the continents. The summit discussed many of the issues that clearly did not figure in the heads of state summit. And to understand more about this, we have with us Zoe Alexandra, who's right now in Brussels and covered these summits. Zoe, thank you so much for joining us. So usually, of course, we talk about the heads of state, but I think today we'll do something different, talk about the people's summit first. So could you tell us what was on the agenda at this people's summit? Because I think this people's summit also taking place amid some minor tensions regarding, you know, how parallel forums were organized. So this people's summit had a very different agenda, it seems like. So could you tell us a bit about that? That's exactly right. The people's summit was organized by coalition of over 100 movements, trade unions, left parties from across Latin American, the Caribbean and in Europe. It was a true testament to the diversity of people's struggles from both sides, from both regions with a heavy emphasis on really combating the historical legacy of colonialism and of imperialism that characterizes the relationship between Europe and Latin America. We're not talking about two regions that have had a interaction that has always been amicable. This is, you know, the European powers colonized Latin America and the Caribbean continue to carry out imperialist attacks against many of the countries in the region. And so this people's summit was a chance for the people to come together to really debate some of these key issues. For example, the blockade against Cuba, it was a huge topic that was debated. The EU does not currently have sanctions against Cuba. However, they just passed a resolution in the European Parliament that called for the EU to impose sanctions on Miguel Diaz-Canel and, you know, passed wording and statements that were very, very, very sharply condemning Cuba's position, even called for Cuba to not be invited to the CELAC EU summit. So it's clear that the EU still represents a block that is in play. It's not defined one way or another. But as right-wing forces are growing in the region, it is crucial that there is a people-to-people dialogue and that there can be pressure from within Europe against their governments to stop many of these imperialist attacks against Latin America and imperialist policies. We know that there's a lot of European interest in Latin America from big corporations, many of the largest mining companies that today are present across Latin America and the Caribbean are stationed in Europe, have European capital. And so really a lot of these issues were brought to the table, especially also the blockade and sanctions against Venezuela, which Europe has played a huge role if they're not doing it in Cuba. They're definitely in Venezuela, European countries. And the EU itself has imposed sanctions against members of the Venezuelan government, which they say does not actually target the Venezuelan people, but we know that these sanctions, even if they're targeted sanctions, have so many secondary effects on the people, the ability for governments to actually engage in normal political and financial and economic transactions with other nations. So all of these were really key issues and also ratifying the CELAC commitment to Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace. This has been a historic commitment from this regional space, which grew to prominence and was founded during the first progressive wave by Hugo Chavez with the impulse of Luna da Silva and the other progressive leaders in the region at that time. It has once again gained this prominence in Latin America and the Caribbean, and it's showing with this EU CELAC summit as well, that it is a key player. And so in the 2014 CELAC summit they declared Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace. And so this has many implications, not only for the internal conflicts that are taking place in several countries across the region, but also demanding that imperialist forces do not use the region as a zone of conflict in an attempt to carry out their own warmongering plans. So a very vibrant discussion and debate, large delegations that came from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, all bringing to the fore their struggles in their countries for sovereignty, for dignity, for true freedom and independence. And for greater regional integration. Absolutely. Interesting, Zoe, because it does seem like the people's summit really foregrounding imperialism as a key topic, which often you do not see in many of these global forums and discussions. But now let's go to the official summit, the EU CELAC heads of state summit. And like we said, the continents right now in very different spaces, so to speak, politically Europe, of course, facing a right wing resurgence in Latin America. Right wing still strong, but we're also seeing progressive governments. So what was the mood like at this summit and what are the kind of results or conclusions that came out? Well, it's pretty interesting because, as I said, the relationship between Latin American Europe has been one that's characterized by domination, by the sense of superiority of Europe and many Latin American leaders actually commented in the summit that it's Europe that is in need of a saving hands from Latin America, not only in the sense of resources and raw materials Europe isn't currently in an extreme energy crisis does not have putting sanctions on Russia is left in a very vulnerable position. Latin America is essentially the future of all clean energy in terms of the resources that it possesses, but not only because of the resources that Latin America has, but also because of the strong movements that it's been able to build the moral force of its leaders currently. It is, as you said, Europe is sort of sliding back towards the far right and towards authoritarianism is unable to establish its own independent foreign policy. The US essentially dominates so much of what gets said in Europe at their forums. And what's interesting is that Latin America actually coming to this space and saying, you might be dominated by the US, but we are not. And so one of the major sticking points in this summit, despite actually being completely external to any of the main issues that the two regions were discussing was the war in Ukraine. And the European bloc, surely from some impetus from the United States really came in with the agenda that they wanted to push a clause on the final statement that would condemn Russia and support Ukraine in its war efforts. And this before the summit has been a huge point from Latin American leaders to say, no, we're not going to accept this kind of imposition of the agenda. This doesn't even have to do with the issues that we're trying to discuss, which are economic cooperation, which are agreements with the Mercosur European Union agreement. And this was coming into the summit. This was a huge point. And even during the summit, we heard that there was a really, really long delay and even finishing the final statement because several European countries were pushing for this statement condemning Russia. And finally, the will and the determination of Latin America to have an independent foreign policy that's about non-interference, non-alignment, and not trying to really get involved in a war that's Europe's. And so this was quite powerful. Many of the leaders that actually even came to speak at the People's Summit, including Luis Arce, including Delcey Rodriguez, the Venezuelan vice president, really emphasized that it's their right as sovereign nations to not have to have, to not take the stance of the United States, to not take the stance of the European Union. And so I think that in this sense, they really showed and they gave the example that it's actually possible to exist independently of the United States and that Latin America has faced and is willing to face the consequences of that. Currently, Europe, it has a lot to lose from this. And this is something Gustavo Petro emphasized a lot, that when you have a lot to lose, it's a lot harder to make these choices. Latin America is already in such a difficult position. It's faced so much over the past decade, over the past decades, historically, over the past 500 years with colonialism. And so they are willing to forge their own path to try to create a new system, to try to create new paradigms. And Europe still seems stuck in this system where they're unable to really challenge the US interests and really do what's best for their own people. And this is the key issue is that Europe is sacrificing its own people for US interests. And so I think it was quite an interesting summit in that sense. There was also meetings held, bilateral meetings between the Venezuelan opposition and the Venezuelan government. This was also attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez. So really interesting movements happening. CELAC, once again, is really showing its might, it's showing its strength and showing that it is really the voice of Latin America. I think the OAS is at this point such an artifact of the past, an artifact of imperialists and attempts to dominate the region. And it has completely failed. CELAC is clearly what is forging the path for the future. Racing Zoe, it looks like Latin America. Once again, fighting off the moan road rocked and even as Europe is implementing its own version of that. Thank you so much for talking to us. We'll come back to you with maybe some of the conclusions of this summit, some of the longer term implications another day. We now go to Thailand where chaos is broken out in the political sphere after Peter Limjaran Rath, the leader of the move forward party, was temporarily suspended from parliament by a court. Now the party is the single largest in the Thai lower house of parliament and Peter was the leading candidate to become the prime minister. Now his candidature was of course not warmly received by the ruling military monarchy establishment and there had been speculation for a while that he would be disqualified. And promptly on the day of the second vote to elect a prime minister, the constitutional court ordered his suspension pending a final ruling. Subsequently, the parliament has blocked Peter from running it for PM as well. Now this is a developing story, there might be a lot of changes happening by the time you see this video, but currently to make sense of these developments, we go to Anish. Anish, thank you so much for joining us. So we have been tracking the story for quite some time and you had, I think earlier talked about when the last vote took place, you had talked about the fact that Peter had tried to form a majority he was not able to, but and you had also I think mentioned that there was this case looming in front of him, but this is really a dramatic development. So could you first take us through what has happened on Wednesday in Thailand and also a bit about the case? Yeah, dramatic is a mind which you put it actually considering how things went down. We had the parliament session happening and having less than an hour into the session, there was already the constitutional court handing down the order to suspend him as a legislator and the fact that obviously Peter had to receive that order while he was sitting in parliament in the joint session while he was being voted for the prime minister. Obviously these developments while dramatic obviously was not unexpected because we have seen this happen multiple times over and over again. I mean it's pretty much a rule book at this point. You have a prominent anti-militarist candidate either forming a government or close to forming government and there are new rules being written down. Now the case is quite significant because on the one hand obviously even with the suspension he was qualified to stand for the post of the prime minister but what happened was the senators which has pretty much military appointees at this point most of them appointed during the junta was in power and the pro-royalist and the pro-military factions within the lower house who was a minority pretty much argued that the motion for the candidacy can only be filed once by a candidate and now what happened today was a vote of whether or not he can stand because he already failed the vote last week and so they decided that he is not qualified to stand again because the motion was already defeated in the current session. Now that kind of sets the precedent of how prime minister can be elected in the near future even and that also sets the precedent for maybe another set of primaries because after the MFP the move forward party which only had one prime ministerial candidate filed during the electoral process it now goes to the HAT now goes to Kuwaiti which is the second largest party in the parliament and also the second largest party within the eight-party coalition that was trying to form a government and they obviously have three candidates but the question is it kind of sets the precedent of what the militarist establishment wants. In this context you mean that it is not usual that if a candidate fails to become the prime minister once he or she doesn't get a second chance exactly exactly and this is the first time they've made up that rule pretty much yeah pretty much they just interpreted it in that manner and this is not something new we have seen in the past election they try to pretty much change the laws of who gets elected as well but that's a different story but yeah in this current scenario what happens is that the Kuwaiti will have one or maybe three chance of like trying to get a prime minister elected and if that fails pretty much it goes to the military so they have set the tone of what they expect and they do not want obviously the MFP to be empowered at any point in time. Right of course also remind viewers that the current vote that is taking place for the position of prime minister involves members from both houses and while you know move forward in Feutai for instance I like you said the eight-party coalition has a majority in the lower house of parliament the Senate is almost entirely controlled by members appointed by the military and the establishment so overall they seem to have a lead but Anish Krith tell us a bit about what the case against Feutai is in this context as well because I think he has a potential of appealing like you said but what is the reason he was temporarily suspended by the court? The reason is basically that the case has been accepted and that until there is a judgment on the case he will be suspended from following any of the duties of the that is the court like the duties of the as a lawmaker so he pretty much cannot can sit maybe but we are also not sure with that the whole thing basically it's going the kind of manner in which the whole system works right now when it comes to dealing with opposition candidates pretty much you make the rules as to go so right now there is one case against Peter which is which my if it goes against him obviously he gets disqualified as a parliamentarian but and probably even at the worst case scenario would be that he will be banned from politics active politics for the next 10 years which has happened again in the past and there is another case which is it's a far more significant which is about move forward party against the move forward party and the campaign promise to amend the the less immature state law which is the royal defamation law which which has been at the center of you know high politics for several years and even was the reason why Peter was defeated at this point and in that case the court is going to judge whether or not even calling for an amendment of the law is going against the monarchy or you know calling you know trying to attack the monarchy so that kind of judgment is going to be far more significant because obviously it will dissolve the move forward party forcefully but it will also affect civil rights as well as a whole in Thailand and pretty much gives the monarchy a non-president powers and rights that cannot really sustainably stay with any kind of democratic system in that in the current situation so pretty much we are going into that territory where even calling for a law that very vaguely deals with the monarchy can be deemed as an attack on the monarchy and that is pretty much the direction that the the highest establishment right now is going towards absolute and Anish of course Peter's agenda there of course a lot of uncertainty around his real agenda is approached to foreign affairs these are issues we have noted in the past as well and a very wide and diverse set of supporters including various influences but I think it's a significant note that for a big country like Thailand this kind of chaos is definitely not likely to have positive impact and you know really kind of poses I think questions about democracy itself thank you so much for talking to us and I suspect we'll be coming back to this topic in Thailand in future episodes as well and we'll be following very similar issues in future episodes so do go to youtube watch daily debrief every day also visit our website peoplesdispatch.org all our social media platforms and keep following us