03/26/2021 10:32 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 03/26/2021 10:42 AM
From the Casa Rosada, President Alberto Fernández holds a virtual meeting with his counterparts from Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Asunción that created Mercosur.
The meeting, which was scheduled for 10
o'clock
,
was delayed a few minutes due to the inconvenience to connect that Bolivian leaders, Luis Arce, had.
"With the Mercosur, our countries have shaped a true milestone , "
said Fernandez during his keynote speech at the event
,
where it will be presented the citizenship status of the Mercosur (ECM).
A priori, there would be no special announcements, but
there are expectations about what neighbors will say about Venezuela after the Argentine government's decision to withdraw from the Lima Group.
After Fernández's presentation, his peers Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Miguel Abdo Benítez (Paraguay), Luis Lacalle Pou (Uruguay), Luis Arce (Bolivia) and Sebastián Piñera (Chile) will speak.
The Statute, which will be presented by Foreign Minister Felipe Solá,
compiles rights and benefits that directly impact the lives of the inhabitants of these nations
in various matters such as movement of people and residence, borders, work, social security, education, cooperation. consular, communications and consumer defense.
In principle, the Government had planned a face-to-face meeting in Buenos Aires in what would be the first meeting between Alberto and Bolsonaro, who maintain a tense relationship.
But, weeks ago, Solá reported that the meeting was going virtual.
The reason given by the Government for suspending the summit at the CCK was the worsening of the regional situation of the coronavirus pandemic.
Thirty years after its creation, Mercosur suffers from central issues.
Argentina's neighbors demand that it can sign free trade agreements with the countries that it had been negotiating (Canada, Korea, Lebanon, Singapore, among others).
They want to lower the common external tariff, while Argentina insists on closing the Mercosur-European Union, a bloc that presented strong objections to the FTA, now due to differences in environmental standards with Brazil.
News in development.
JPE
Look also
Mercosur celebrates 30 years this Friday with a summit that was intended as face-to-face and ended virtual
Alberto Fernandez suspended the face-to-face summit of Mercosur: it will be virtual
