Published on EurActiv.com

The President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos Calderón contributed this op-ed exclusively to EurActiv. He will be on an official visit to Brussels on Tuesday (4 November).

The peace process conducted with the FARC guerillas has led profound changes for Colombia, including boosting rural development, the origin of our conflict, changing bullets for votes, and dismantling of the mafia drug trafficking structures, writes Columbia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón.

The peace process conducted by the Colombian Government with FARC guerrilla in Havana for two years –with the support of Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela– has been a serious, realistic, dignified and effective process, which has represented concrete progress.

The first three points we, on which we have already agreed, contain profound changes for Colombia: make historic investments to boost rural development, the origin of our conflict; change bullets for votes for ever, deepening our democracy, and the dismantling of the mafia drug trafficking structures, accompanied by a large national program consisting of replacing crops and on alternative development, which would lead to approaching a Colombia without coca.

We have gone further than ever, but it is also true that we are entering the most complex stage: the points that address the issue of victims and transitional justice, and the so called DDR: disarmament, demobilization and reintegration.

Many will wonder: why is this important for Europe or for the world?

Read the full story here.