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sentido, en las partes empíricas se comprueba que la ALBA depende de tres factores estrechamente ligados: su carácter antihegemónico de desafiar a Estados Unidos (soft balancing), la continuidad de los regímenes cubano y venezolano, y los recursos económicos destinados a la iniciativa. Palabras claveDesarrollo; integración regional; relaciones sur-sur; cooperación económica; régimen político; Cuba; Venezuela; América Latina; crisis económica; marxismo. AbstractThe Bolivarian Alliance for our America (ALBA) and its additional TCP (Trade Treaty of the People), driven by Cuba and Venezuela, emerged as an alternative to US hegemony and the proposal to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Since 2014, the initiative has faced a double crisis: the critical political and economic situation in Venezuela that limits the financing of ALBA; and the uncertainties of post-Castro Cuba that constrains its ideational basis. The article addresses three research questions: To which theoretical paradigm does ALBA correspond when distinguishing between discourse and reality? What are its ideational and material outcomes? Will ALBA survive despite financial and political restrictions in Cuba and Venezuela? These questions are answered in three sections. The first inscribes ALBA in relevant theoretical debates, the second focuses on an empirical analysis of its objectives and results, while the final section addresses the existential crisis in Venezuela and changes in Cuba. The article concludes with a forecast of ALBA's future. The authors maintain that the dynamics and results of ALBA respond to a realist soft balancing strategy, which contrasts with its regionalism-integration and counterhegemony neo-Marxist discourses. With this background, the two empirical sections argue that the viability of ALBA depends on three intertwined elements: its counter-hegemonic character of challenging the US (soft balancing); the continuity of the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes; and the available economic resources.

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Although interests are obviously part of inter-regional relations, the European-Latin American partnership is not mainly interest- but value-driven. Since the early 1980s, when nearly all Latin American countries abandoned military regimes, democracy and human rights have had a prominent place in EU-Latin American relations. Today, the mutual commitment to democracy and human rights is stressed in all official documents and cooperation accords between the EU and Latin America. Nonetheless, other regional priorities and the return to electoral democracy began to undermine the common values discourse and marginalize the political role of the EU in Latin America. This article is based on three major arguments: First, the EU's democratic engagement in Latin America still focuses on traditional authoritarian regimes (Cuba) and has not developed into a strategy towards the new political challenges of democratic backlash; second, the substance of democracy promotion mainly consists of technical governance issues and socio-economic support; and third, Spain is still a major actor in EU policy and its low priority of democracy promotion influenced the EU's profile. Based on these assumptions and following a short discussion on underlying principles, this article will address EU's priorities in democracy assistance in Latin America, particularly with regard to the most problematic countries in terms of democracy, such as Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela.

Since 1957, the European Union (EU) has been a constant and reliable partner of Latin America, on the one hand, and the Caribbean, on the other. It still offers a unique model of idealist interregionalism based on the promotion of its own integration model, combined with limited economic interests, soft power and, more recently, shared global visions such as sustainable development, Compared with the two bigger external actors, the United States and China, the EU is a normative actor that complements and sometimes counterbalances (in the cases of Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico) relations with the dominant power. Although, in relative terms, trade exchanges have declined since the 1990s, Latin America and the EU share a solid network of multilevel and contractual relations integrated by political dialogue, development cooperation, and investment flows. The EU signed free trade agreements plus (dialogue and cooperation) with Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean, and Central America. In June 2019 finalized a twenty year process of free trade negotiations between the EU and MERCOSUR. Once in force and approved by EU institutions and the four South American states, the EU-MERCOSUR association agreement will reactivate trade exchange grounded on economic, political, social and cultural cooperation between state and non-state actors. Nonetheless, it remains unclear if the 32 states involved in the mixed agreement (European Commission’s exclusive trade competences plus EU member states) will approve the deal in a foreseeable future.