With the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon and the new European External Action Service as the driver of external policy of the European Union, the ECS, as a part of the Caribbean find themselves being regrouped geographically and even politically with their Latin American neighbours, in the Directorate of the Americas. The LAC configuration is therefore becoming of increasingly strategic importance for the ECS as this group consists of developing and emerging economies.

The Latin American and Caribbean Group of countries meets regularly in Brussels at Head of Mission level and at technical level. The current chair of the group is Chile, having succeeded to Argentina who coordinated in 2010.

The framework of relations between LAC and the EU is governed by the outcomes of the LAC-EU summits. The last summit was held in Madrid in 2010 where Heads agreed on a Declaration and Action Plan. The latter highlights the 5 areas of focus for LAC-EU cooperation leading up to the new Summit in 2012 in Santiago de Chile. The areas of focus under the Madrid Action Plan are: i) Science, research, innovation and technology; ii) Sustainable development, environment, climate change, biodiversity, energy; iii) Regional integration and interconnectivity to promote social inclusion and cohesion; iv) Migration; v) Education and employment to promote social inclusion and cohesion; and vi) the world drug problem.