MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Mercosur is more than a market agreement”

Uruguay's President-elect Tabaré Vázquez yesterday met with President Néstor Kirchner in Government House, on his first trip abroad since he won office in the October 31 election.

Kirchner and Vázquez have a fluent political relationship. The Kirchner government sent out more than one signal during Uruguay's presidential campaign that it favoured a Vázquez victory.

Vázquez, leader of the left-leaning Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition, will be the first elected president in the history of Uruguay that is not a member of the National or the Colorado parties. He is to take office on March 1 and Kirchner is expected to attend the swearing in ceremony.

The two leaders discussed various issues, some of them promising to become stumbling blocks in the bilateral relationship in the coming months.

The Uruguayan president-elect is worried about a troublesome aspect in the trade relationship between his country's state-owned petroleum refining company, ANCAP, and Argentina's privatized Repsol-YPF. Vázquez told Kirchner that ANCAP is losing two million dollars a month because it buys oil at international prices but is forced to sell to Repsol-YPF at the 30-dollar cap ordered by the national government to control local prices.

"If we can't find a solution for that soon, our government will have to pay too much to cover the gap," Vázquez told a press conference he gave along with Kirchner's Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernández.

Kirchner, meanwhile, asked Vázquez about the prospects of a request likely to be made by the judge investigating the December 30 disco blaze that killed 190 people, to Uruguayan courts, as the owners of the República Cromañón rock club set ablaze are reportedly an offshore company based in Uruguay. Disco manager Omar Chabán is currently under arrest but court sources have said he is only a front-man and not the actual owner of the ill-fated club.

"Our government will respect whatever decision the Uruguayan courts take," said Vázquez, "Uruguay strictly respects the independence of the courts."

Kirchner and Vázquez also talked about the Mercosur trade bloc and about energy. Uruguay wants to import gas from Bolivia but depends on access to a new pipeline Argentina is planning to build to get at Bolivian gas.

About the Mercosur, the Uruguayan president-elect said: "Mercosur is more than a market agreement, our integration has to go beyond trade and should also include political, economical and cultural aspects."