Natasha Niebieskikwiat
11/30/2020 12:53 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 11/30/2020 1:10 PM
Eleven months after assuming the presidency, Alberto Fernández held his first bilateral conversation with Jair Bolsonaro on Monday.
It was by videoconference, and both began with this meeting to redirect a bond crossed by harsh bilateral clashes.
Furthermore, everyone rated the match as "better than expected."
They talked for an hour.
The formal conversation began with a moment of relaxation in which Bolsonaro offered his condolences to Fernández for the recent death of Diego Armando Maradona.
"The only difference we have is in soccer," Alberto told him
.
And in which the Argentine told the Brazilian that the only difference the two countries could have was in football, which marks the total change in climate between the two.
Fernandez.
He also told him then that the popular wills of the peoples must be respected, that just as he is the president of the Argentines, Bolsonaro is that of the Brazilians.
And he said that the backbone of Mercosur is the harmony between Argentina and Brazil.
Clarín
had anticipated in September that both planned to meet this November 30 with the excuse of commemorating the
35 years of the agreement that Raúl Alfonsín and José Sarney signed and that laid the foundations of Mercosur
.
The original idea of the ambassador in Brasilia, Daniel Scioli, was to meet them in person in Foz de Iguazú, where the already deceased leaders signed precisely the so-called Declaration of Iguazú.
Businessmen, and even several governors, had been asking Foreign Minister Felipe Solá and Ambassador Daniel Scioli to achieve a meeting of presidents once and for all, from two countries with such a central relationship as Argentina and Brazil.
This month, the numbers once again consolidated the neighbor as the first commercial partner, a place that has been disputed by China.
Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Scioli at a dinner with Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of President Jair Bolsonaro.
But the persistence of the pandemic and the difficulties to mobilize at this time, led them to try the virtual format first.
A few days ago, Fernández met with the Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou in the eastern ranch of Anchorena.
Argentina will assume the presidency of Mercosur on December 16 and its idea is to achieve the incorporation of Bolivia as a full member of the bloc.
All that remains is for the Brazilian Congress to ratify it.
Bolsonaro and Fernández had never spoken to each other, not even on the phone,
and they have conflicting views on almost all fronts.
They only saw each other collectively at a virtual Mercosur summit in the middle of the year.
But the sending of former Vice President Scioli as ambassador to Brasilia began to smooth things over.
Foreign Minister Felipe Solá also made his arrangements, who on December 20 had a long conversation with his counterpart Ernesto Araújo.
Solá had visited him last February and then Bolsonaro received him.
They agreed that he would meet Alberto F. at the inauguration of Lacalle Pou in Montevideo on March 1.
But in the end Fernández did not want that photo.
The final stitch of this long-awaited meeting this Monday took place at the home of the Brazilian President's Secretary for Strategic Affairs, Flavio Viana Rocha.
He
brought together Scioli and Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president's son
, and also a source of harsh criticism of the Kirchnerist presidency - calling it a communist and Chavista government -, Alberto himself and his son Estanislao.
On the Argentine side, Alberto Fernández put the campaign for Lula Libre on his shoulder - he is already out of jail - and even visited him.
He even went so far as to say that Argentina's relationship with Brazil would be another if he governed.
The interference in Brazilian politics of the Argentine irritated the Brazilian president.
They were also strongly separated by the relationship of the K government with that of Nicolás Maduro and Bolsonaro's alliance with Donald Trump, which resulted in the victory of Mauricio Claver Carone as IDB president.
But in the last time, there was an Argentine decision not to overheat the tension.
The Fernández government chose not to reply to the tweets of Bolsonaro Sr. and Bolsonaro Jr., and since then the presidential message sent by Scioli to Bolsonaro was to bring positions closer together.
PDL
