President Alberto Fernández will make a new tour of European countries next week and, although details about his agenda remain to be confirmed, the spokeswoman for the Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, reported that the president will visit Spain and Germany to meet “with heads of state and with entrepreneurs.
In her traditional press conference on Thursdays before the accredited media at the Casa Rosada, the Secretary of Communication pointed out that it is a “trip that was scheduled” in advance and on which the Foreign Ministry headed by Santiago Cafiero is finalizing at this time the details of the agenda that the Head of State will fulfill in the old continent.
In Europe, the President will hold meetings “with heads of state to, like all trips of this nature, continue with the insertion of Argentina in the world, to carry out conversations on the international situation -the one that crosses Europe in particular-, to get investments for Argentina and continue on this path of growth”Ceruti said.
The spokeswoman confirmed that, among the destinations of the tour that will start on Monday and will run until next Thursdayare Spain and Germany.
As confirmed to Télam from the San Martin Palace, the Argentine president will specify on Tuesday orn new bilateral meeting with the President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, who was in Buenos Aires in June of last year, and on Wednesday he will be received in Germany by Olaf Scholzthe Social Democratic president who replaced Angela Merkel in the German government months ago.
In those countries Fernández also plans to lead a round of meetings with businessmen in search of a higher level of investment and to promote Argentine exports in those markets.
Cafiero, his time in India and Italy
In that sense, Foreign Minister Cafiero made a tour last week that included Italy and India, which opened up new opportunities for the country.
After the meeting that Cafiero held in New Delhi with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with whom he discussed, among other issues, promoting an agenda for the Global South and the importance of coordination between both nations in multilateral forums such as the WTO and the G20 based on in emerging economies,India ordered the expansion of the purchase of soybean meal to 550,000 tons, which represents approximately 220 million dollars.
The purpose of that tour was increase bilateral trade in products such as soybean and sunflower oil and add more Argentine exportable supply such as auincrease in the quota for soybean meal.
During his tour of Italy and before visiting India, Cafiero held a working meeting at the headquarters of the General Confederation of Italian Industryappointment at Viale Dell’ Astronomia 30 in Rome.
Invited by the authorities of the industrial association -there is no immediate memory of an Argentine foreign minister visiting the headquarters of the Italian industrialists-, Cafiero met with representatives of various companies to talk and clear up all the concerns they had about the investment potential that Argentina offers in sectors such as renewable energy, mining, chemistry, electromobility and knowledge economy, among others.
France, a possible stop
According to sources from the Presidency, in addition to the visits to Spain and Germany, the tour could include France for a bilateral meeting with recently re-elected President Emmanuel Macron, before Fernández’s return to Buenos Aires, scheduled for next Friday.
In this sense, the Argentine president had agreed with his French counterpart to a visit that would take place after the elections that took place in April in the European country and that is why there is speculation about a possible stopover of the trip in Paris.
It is that the tight victory that Macron obtained in the recent ballot against Marine Le Pen forced the French president to focus on internal negotiations to form a government, something that could complicate the possibilities of a bilateral agreement with Fernández.
The tour of the Argentine head of state takes place at a time when Europe is affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and in which he experiences a pronounced advance of extreme right-wing expressions.
With regard to the latter, the night of Macron’s victory, Fernández celebrated the fact that the French had re-elected the French head of state “in the face of the strident voices of the extreme right, propagators of hatred and prejudice”, and maintained that his victory “It is essential to deepen multilateralism.”
Fernandez argued that “aggressive and confrontational voices are not the answer. In times of redefinitions on the international scene, the victory of Emmanuel Macron is essential to deepen multilateralism.”
In May of last year, Fernández visited France, as part of a tour of several European countries, and received Macron’s support in Argentina’s renegotiation of its debt with the IMF.
Sánchez’s passage through Argentina
During the official visit to Buenos Aires, in June of last year, by the Spanish president Sánchez, Alberto Fernández pointed out that Argentina and Spain have a “unique opportunity to understand each other and be able to advance” in bilateral relations and stressed that Spanish companies “have all the possibilities to continue investing” in the country.
Participating, then, in a meeting with Sánchez and businessmen from both countries, Fernández called for making ties “even more solid” and “joining efforts on both sides of the Atlantic.”
In addition, Fernández thanked Sánchez for his country’s support in the debt renegotiation process that, some time later, Argentina closed with the International Monetary Fund.
“I want to thank the Government of Spain for all the times I required their help to face the most critical moments when we took office. They were always on our side, accompanying us and attending to our claims on the debt issue,” Fernández said then.
