2023-06-10 00:21:09
Next Tuesday there will be a chapter on the international agenda for President Alberto Fernández, who will receive the head of the European Commission, the German, at the Casa Rosada Ursula von der Leyenvisiting several Latin American countries with the “objective of strengthening relations with key partners in the region”.
The European official will remain in Buenos Aires for barely 24 hours, and after the meeting on Tuesday at noon with Fernández, in the afternoon she will be the main speaker at a meeting of the EU-Argentina Business Forum.
Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero will also be present at Tuesday’s meeting, and although it has not been confirmed, it is possible that Von der Leyden and Fernández will hold a press conference after the meeting.
The trip of the head of the EU will have a meeting with Lula da Silva in Brazil on Monday, will continue the next day in Buenos Aires and on Wednesday the president Gabriel Boric will receive her in Chile. From there Von der Leyden will fly to Mexico, to meet Andrés López Obrador on Thursday.
The visit takes place days after the presentation of the New Agenda for relations between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean, where “a modernized and more solid strategic association is proposed, through a reinforced political dialogue, the stimulation of trade and the investment”.
During the meeting that they will share in the Casa Rosada, the negotiations will be analyzed so that the agreement that the European Union signed with Mercosur at the end of 2019, which until now has not been able to advance due to objections from the agricultural countries of the Old Continent.
Cafiero’s contacts with Borrell
“We want a revised agreement with the European Union, adapted to a changing world and value chains. We understand that there are certain points that must be rediscussed,” emphasized Cafiero during in Brussels, earlier this year, when he met with the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, Joseph Borrell
The same officials had also met in October of last year, remarking the “strategic importance” of the EU-Mercosur agreement.
Specifically, what the South American bloc asks to review are aspects related to environmental and political reasons, since the main difficulty they encounter is the Green Pact, which seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions but would leave almost all items of the production of the Mercosur countries unable to access the European market.
During his visit to Belgium, within the framework of Argentina’s six-month presidency of Mercosur, Cafiero clarified that the “look” of the four Mercosur countries is not “univocal but coordinated”, and that they have “political will” to advance in the negotiation, especially since the arrival of Lula da Silva to the Brazilian government.
With the European bloc pushed by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the strong energy impact, the EU-Celac Summit of Heads of State, set for July 17 and 18 in Brussels, will be a key date to determine the fate of of the negotiation.
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