Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, the Mercosur countries, will resume their face-to-face summits tomorrow, with the challenge of correcting their disagreements over a possible trade agreement with China and the conflict in Ukraine.
Source: EFE
The four member countries of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), accompanied by Bolivia and the states associated with the bloc, will meet in the city of Luque, after two and a half years of virtuality due to the pandemic.
The expected reunion will be marked, however, by the discomfort generated by Uruguay’s announcement that talks will begin for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China and the disparate positions of its partners regarding the war in Ukraine.
Uruguay will assume on this occasion the pro tempore Presidency of the regional bloc.
The agenda will start on Wednesday with the LX Ordinary Meeting of the Council of the Common Market, which will be attended by foreign ministers, and will conclude on Thursday with the summit of heads of Mercosur and its associated states.
In addition, Paraguay will host on Thursday the fourth summit of the Forum for the Progress of South America (Prosur).
BETWEEN CONFIRMATIONS AND UNKNOWN
Asked about the meeting, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay, Julio César Arriola, told the ABC Cardinal radio station on Tuesday that the presidents of Argentina, Alberto Fernández; Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou; and Bolivia, Luis Arce (in the process of full accession).
Likewise, the Prime Minister of Guyana, Mark Phillips, and the Vice President of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez, whose countries are associated with the mechanism founded in 1991.
The participation of the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, is still unknown, although the hosts remain hopeful.
“It is not ruled out that this event could occur,” Arriola told Radio 780 AM.
A “NEW REALITY”
The first in-person summits of the Mercosur foreign ministers and heads of state after the pandemic will have as a background a world political scene polarized by the war in Ukraine.
Arriola confirmed that the Paraguayan president, Mario Abdo Benítez, entrusted him with the task of consulting the proposal of the Ukrainian leader, Volodímir Zelenski, to send a message to Mercosur.
The matter must be approved by all the partners, since the bloc adopts its decisions by consensus.
However, the initiative seems distant from the agenda of Bolsonaro, who has declared himself neutral in the conflict in Ukraine and has strengthened commercial ties with Moscow.
Bolsonaro’s presence in Paraguay could serve as an occasion for consultations to arise on the negotiation that both countries can undertake in 2023 on Annex C of the Itaipu Treaty.
That section establishes, among others, the distribution of the energy of the dam shared by both countries, currently immersed in the months prior to the general elections.
URUGUAY, BETWEEN CHINA AND MERCOSUR
Uruguay’s intention to move towards an agreement with China has also been a cause for concern within this mechanism, although Lacalle Pou came out on Monday to calm things down.
“Mercosur has much more negotiating power as a whole than Uruguay alone,” the president clarified before assuming the reins of the bloc.
There is, without a doubt, a long way to go, since Paraguay is one of the 14 countries that recognize Taiwan.
For this reunion, Asunción will display among the achievements of her pro tempore Presidency the conclusion of the negotiations for a free trade agreement between Mercosur and Singapore.
Meanwhile, the Association Agreement with the European Union, signed in June 2019 after two decades of negotiations, remains on hold, but whose entry into force depends on the legislative ratification of all those involved.
