President Alberto Fernández returned from the tour of the United States with the IMF’s willingness to review the goals of the agreement next year, while in another key part of the trip he joined the gestation of an international initiative to achieve peace in Ukraine, restore the supply of goods and calm the price tension in the world.
Dialogue with the IMF
The possibility that the organization agrees to modify the program is subject to the new conditions being favorable to the country’s interests, the delegation stressed, while the debate on how to coordinate multilateral action to end the war was another of the priorities of a visit in which Argentina was heard as a representative of a regional bloc.
The chance of making the agreement with the IMF more flexible emerged from the meeting that Fernández held Monday morning at the Argentine Consulate in New York with the director of the organization, Kristalina Georgievajust a short time after the approval of the second technical review was announced.
“Let’s see if it suits us; if so, we will accept”, official sources conceded before the possibility that the Fund accepts in 2023 to make the goals more flexible of the understanding that was reached at the end of January by former Minister Martín Guzmán.
In any case, the Argentine delegation clarified that in the meeting at the Consulate “there was no discussion” with Georgieva of this subject, although the director of the Fund herself “says that, as a result of the war, the goals must be reviewed, and that includes us.”
Bearing in mind that next year is an electoral year, the Argentine government would find it favorable to be exempted from some measures to control public spending to reduce the fiscal deficit.
before the UN
As for the search to contribute to the call for peace, during the presidential trip to the United States for the 77th UN General Assembly, the alternative of a joint intervention of leaders from various regions of the world that exerts pressure for an opening of the dialogue.
That was the axis of the closed meeting that the Argentine president held in New York on Tuesday night with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macronwho specially invited him to a dinner at the Consulate of that country to analyze the energy agenda and, especially, the conflict in Ukraine.
Five presidents from different regional blocs participated in this exclusive meeting, which the Argentine president attended only with security personnel, based on a call promoted by Macron with the idea of defining a multilateral action plan in the face of the prolongation of the war in Europe.
In fact, and as Télam learned from high-ranking government sources, a concrete proposal to intervene in the crisis emerged from that talk, although for now it is in an embryonic state.
“We are trying to open an instance of dialogue that does not exist today”the sources indicated, and warned that, seven months after the start of the fighting between kyiv and Moscow, “the only thing that is clear is that what is being done was not enough.”
That’s what the obsession responds to. Macron for adding leaders that they come from different continents and represent blocs of countries, as a way to cement an extended position that can be a guarantor of some instance of negotiation, although for now it is only a working hypothesis.
In the argentinian government they not only share that ideabut they affirm that “if you keep trying with the same methods, you cannot expect different results”.
Following this premise, President Fernández bets that the voice of the southern hemisphere be taken into account in the conflict, not only because it is representative of a space that is not usually heard but also because it is affected by the restrictions derived from the conflict.
Macron invited leaders from different regional blocs such as the G20, the African Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), of which Alberto Fernández is president pro tempore, to the dinner.
The presidents of the Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouatarra, and of Senegal, Macky Sall, participated in the dinner at the French Consulate, together with the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, as well as the foreign ministers of Egypt, Sameh Shoukry; from France, Catherine Colonna; and from India, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
As the last point on the international agenda, the Argentine president was also able to take his proposals on hunger to a meeting organized by his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, within the framework of the World Summit on Food Security that was also held in New York.
“Hunger did not start with the war in Ukraine, but has to do with a capitalist system that expels and marginalizes”Fernández exclaimed during the lunch called by Sánchez that was held at the Intercontinental Hotel.
They were listening attentively to the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau; the chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz; the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and Presidents Guillermo Lasso, from Ecuador, and Gustavo Petro, from Colombia, among others.
Even before giving his speech, Fernandez shared a moment of greeting and exchange of comments with Trudeau. Just a sample of the good health of international relations.
