President Alberto Fernández will participate this Thursday in the LX Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur and Associated States in the Paraguayan city of Luque, where he will reaffirm Argentina’s position in favor of deepening a process “more frank, more determined and deeper integration” to face the challenges imposed by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The Argentine president will attend the meeting of presidents, which will take place at the Conmebol (South American Football Confederation) Convention Center, in the city of Luque, distant from about 10 kilometers from the Paraguayan capital, official sources reported.
The plenary of Heads of State -the first face-to-face after the virtuality imposed by the coronavirus pandemic that began in March 2020- will begin with the words of the host president, Mario Abdo Benítez, who will present the Report of the Pro Tempore Presidency exercised by Paraguay, and that at the end of the meeting will officially transfer to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.
According to sources from the organization, during the conclave each president of the States party will have a speech of up to 15 minutes and will follow an alphabetical order.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers who attend the event on behalf of their respective presidents will have a presentation of up to 7 minutes, while special guests will be assigned a maximum of 5 minutes.
After the exhibitions and debate, the leaders will pass the approval of the declarations and joint communiqués of the block, to end with the traditional Official photo of the Summit.
The meeting of heads of state has the confirmed presence of three of the four presidents of the countries that make up the bloc: Fernández; the host, Mario Abdo Benítez, and the Uruguayan, Luis Lacalle Pou.
After comings and goings about his presence at the summit, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro announced this Monday that he would not attend the meeting due to problems that he must solve in his countryaccording to the news network CNN Brasil.
However, Brazil will be represented by its Ministers of Economy, Paulo Guedes, and Foreign Relations, Carlos Alberto Franca, who will defend before their peers from Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay one of the most controversial aspects within the bloc, such as the reduction unilateral 10 percentage points of the CET (Common External Tariff).
Alberto Fernández will participate in the lunch of honor that President Abdo Benítez will offer to the leaders of the Member States of Mercosur, associated States and special guests in the Chaco/Tosa complex.
Alberto Fernández will be accompanied by a delegation that integrates the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, Santiago Cafiero, who participated this Wednesday in Paraguay in the LX Ordinary Meeting of the Council of the Common Market of Mercosura preparatory instance in which the issues that will be analyzed and debated tomorrow at the Summit of Heads of State of the regional bloc were defined.
The delegation will also include the Secretary General of the Presidency, Julio Vitobello; the spokeswoman for the Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti; the Secretary of International Economic Relations, Cecilia Todesca Bocco; the Argentine ambassador to the Republic of Paraguay, Domingo Peppo, and the Argentine ambassador to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, Alberto Iribarne.
Uruguay’s decision to start negotiations “individually” for a trade agreement with China outside the regional bloc, was in recent days one of the points of resonance and divergence between the member countries.
At the Ordinary Meeting of the Mercosur Common Market Council (CMC) that serves as a prelude to the conclave of leaders, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo reaffirmed on Wednesday the “power” of his country to “negotiate with third countries outside the zone.”
Bustillo considered that Uruguay will advance in this sense “with our partners” of Mercosur or, failing that, “individually.”
For his part, Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, who spoke earlier, ratified the position already expressed in past summits by President Fernández of holding joint and consensual negotiations.
The Argentine position is in line with the provisions of the constitutive acts of the bloc of Asunción (1991), Ouro Preto (1994) and decision 32 of 2000 signed in Buenos Aires.
“What we call Mercosur is what the countries do with the integration,” remarked Cafiero, who considered that the nations that make up the bloc “would be weaker” negotiating separately.
“Argentina is convinced that its relative position in the world is better because of its membership of Mercosur”indicated sources from the Palacio San Martín.
For this reason, Argentina’s position at this summit will be to reaffirm that the non-existence of the union “would be much more costly for our national and regional capacities, even when they are asymmetric.”
“We believe that, without Mercosur, we would be weaker, with less strength to face changes in the forms of production and trade outside the bloc. We would have much less critical mass for our international presence and insertion,” evaluated at the Palacio San Martín.
Argentina bases its position on the idea that the future of Mercosur is linked to the “deepening of its internal agenda and adequate projection at the international level” in an international scenario that is undergoing “profound change.”
“The transformation of global value chains and logistical difficulties (first in a pandemic and now in war) demand, in our opinion, a more frank, more determined and deeper process of integration, in other words, an industrial and social policy firmer and more determined region”diplomatic sources told Télam.
On the other hand, spokespersons for the Foreign Ministry indicated that in the conclave of Heads of State the presidents will issue four declarations, a first joint communiqué from the presidents of the Mercosur and Bolivia States Parties, a second joint communiqué from the States Parties and the States Associates.
There will also be statements on Food Security and sustainable agricultural production and Post-pandemic Regional Economic and Social Recovery.
The challenge of the energy transition and its effect on climate change can, in this context, be “a vector of regional development if we manage to articulate value chains around new clean technologies such as lithium, electromobility, gas as a transition fuel and green hydrogen”, indicated the spokesmen of the Argentine diplomacy.
