President Alberto Fernández arrived in Paris this Thursday, the third and last stop of his tour of europe to meet this friday with Emmanuel Macron, with whom he will analyze the impact and consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the region and its expansion to the rest of the world.
“I am leaving with the peace of mind of having put the voice of Latin America in this conflict, of being categorical. We have no doubt that Ukraine is the victim of aggression and that we must stop this aggression as soon as possible. What we are looking for is to want to be heard, “Fernández explained about the meaning of his trip.
In a press conference offered on Thursday afternoon at the Argentine embassy in France to the group of Argentine journalists covering the tour, the President explained the reasons for the trip he undertook this week in Europe, which took him to Madrid on Tuesday, to Berlin on Wednesday and to France today and tomorrow, to meet with the leaders of those countries in his capacity as president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
“There is a world of the periphery, which is not the central world of the powerful, who is suffering greatly from the effects of this war. In my capacity as president of CELAC, I have the moral and ethical obligation to take that message to those who are actors” in the conflict, Fernández said.
The President explained that it was an “almost lightning” and highly demanded trip -three countries in four days-, which was organized in a short time and thanked the leaders Pedro Sánchez (Spain), Olaf Scholz (Germany) and Macron (France). ) for his “quick response” to carry out the meetings.
“We are concerned about what the evolution of the armed conflict is generating, with very worrying global consequences. I told Sánchez and Scholz that we have to do something so that this conflict ends as soon as possible, do something to bring about the end of the military actions and do something so that they find an understanding,” Fernández said.
According to the scenario that Fernández outlined in the meetings he held in Europe, the war in Ukraine “puts the Latin American region at risk”, due to the great inequality of that continent. The great concern of the President is that the region’s food and energy security will “break.”
“It is true that Argentina is a food producer and today has a potential surplus in terms of gas that can find an opportunity, but I do not like to find opportunities in a war,” said the president when speaking with journalists covering the presidential tour, including Télam.
In that framework, the President repeated concepts that he had already said this week after the meetings with Sánchez, King Felipe VI and Scholz: “We do not feel that this is an issue between Russia and Ukraine, between Russia and NATO, between Russia and Europe, since the dimension of the conflict acquires a global character and its consequences affect daily life.”
“That is why I promptly asked the foreign minister (Santiago Cafiero) to organize this trip. Everything was the result of this worrying need for the voice of Latin America to be heard and the need and desire to want to collaborate to find a solution to the conflict, which exceeds the limits of the countries in conflict,” he ratified.
Fernandez also warned that with war “all economies can be complicated” and considered that “if the solution found by the central countries is to raise rates, that will generate a huge recession in the world and will complicate the future of our nations much more.”
That issue was specifically addressed in Wednesday’s meeting with Scholz: specifically, the planning of the Central Banks of northern Europe with respect to the treatment of the rise in prices as a result of the war.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Fernández told the German chancellor that “if the mechanism to solve it is the historical measure of raising rates, that will hit economic activity, it will bring a recession and the emerging markets of our region will be hit hard.” “.
“On the other hand, he proposed coordinating the policies of the central banks so that they go to the financing of development and supply, and in this way not spoil economic growth,” explained Foreign Minister Cafiero.
To end the tour, on Friday at 12 (local time, 7 Argentine time) Fernández will meet with Macron at the Elíseo Palace and at the end of this activity he will return to the City of Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, shortly after arriving in the French capital, Fernández received an honorary medal awarded by the Sorbonne University in Paris, after visiting the traditional house of higher studies founded in the 13th century to attend a lunch and have a Meeting with the Academic Council.
“Marie and Pierre Curie, Simone de Beauvoir, Roland Barthes, Saint Thomas Aquinas, among other famous intellectuals, studied here,” Fernandez commented through his account on the social network Instagram.
Throughout his tour, the President was accompanied by Cafiero; spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti; the General Secretaries of the Presidency, Julio Vitobello; and Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Beliz; the Secretary of International Economic Relations, Cecilia Todesca; and the Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, Luciana Tito.
