The President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, gave an interview published in the last few hours in which he blamed Argentina and Brazil for the brake that China put on Uruguay: in a few words, the Asian giant asked the Uruguayan delegation to stop to insist on advancing on a project that, for now, is at a standstill.
“I cannot verify it, but I imagine that there have been diplomatic efforts, both from Argentina and Brazil, to state that they do not look favorably on Uruguay advancing alone. I don’t know how much attention the Chinese government pays to that,” said the president in an interview for the Spanish newspaper The world.
And he added that he sees that “the positions of Brazil and Argentina are clear (…). With an additional element, which is that Brazil has many bilateral negotiations with China in which it does not involve or need Mercosur. So it’s like he is, I’m not saying that he’s in the best of worlds, but in a world that serves him a lot,” said Lacalle Pou.
In another segment of the conversation with the Cantabrian newspaper, he said that he would like it “to be real” that the Mercosur negotiations with the European Union reach a fertile place, and that it be soon. “In the modern world things have to happen fast. When you finish negotiating the agreement, maybe things you negotiated ceased to exist and other forms of linkage arose. It seems to me that we have to go to things that are much more frame and fast, because if there is something that the world has shown, it is that, and Enrique Iglesias told me this a few years ago at lunch: the world is like a big plate of spaghetti, it is in one way, you move it a bit and the dish ends in another way”, he argued.
Tense relationship with Mercosur and null with Unasur
Regarding Mercosur, the president underlined his position: he believes that Uruguay must “open up to the world” and that the bloc can represent a problem for progress alone. “Our preaching, which is not very different from that of previous governments, even if they were of a different political sign, is that Uruguay has to open up to the world. Uruguay has faith in the international context. So far the orders have been quite unsuccessful, but there is that thing about how much the pitcher goes to the fountain that in the end it breaks. And I hope that the one who comes after us does the same, because we need to open up to the world, ”he said in the interview.
Regarding Unasur, he reaffirmed that, at least during his government, Uruguay will not re-enter that group of countries: “It is very difficult to have processes in the long or medium term if the support is ideological. That is why I am very concerned when international organizations begin to be born, which are the only living beings that are born, but do not die. The superimposition of organisms all it does is weaken those that already exist. From Uruguay we have: Mercosur, Aladi, OEA, United Nations. For me that is what is necessary”.
