MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine industries union rejects Venezuela in Mercosur

Chavez a complicated associate for the Kirchners

Argentina’s powerful Industrial Union (UIA) urged Argentina's government to revise the possibility of integrating Venezuela as a member of the Mercosur, “after the reiterating actions which have implied the nationalization of companies in Venezuela”.

“The basic conditions for a country to be incorporated to the Mercosur include to accept the coordination of macroeconomic policies and the values of gradualism, flexibility and balance, key to regional integrity”, the UIA statement added.

The decisions systematically adopted by the Venezuelan Government are contradictory to these conditions, highlighting a position of absolute asymmetry in respect to what is offered by the rest of the Mercosur countries, putting at risk the process of regional integration, and representing a substantial change with respect to the circumstances under which the Argentine Congress approved the inclusion of Venezuela in the Mercosur block, underlines UIA.

Last week Chavez announced the nationalization of several companies related to the production of iron and steel among which Tavsa, Matesi and Comsigua, with a majority stake from the Argentine-Italian group Techint.

Lawmakers from Argentina and Uruguay have already approved the Venezuelan Mercosur-incorporation request, which dates back to 2006, but both Brazil and Paraguay are still pending and there is a considerable resistance to the Chavez regime.

UIA underscores that “recent statements from President Hugo Chávez with respect to the exclusion of Brazilian companies from the nationalization process overseen by his government, far from promoting integration, seem to foment the divide between the countries that make up the block”.

Chavez and Brazil’s Lula da Silva held a closed doors meeting Tuesday in Bahía, but open microphones betrayed the situation and journalists overheard when in a very plain atmosphere the Venezuelan president joked about the nationalization spree, “except for those from Brazil”, which triggered a general laughter at the summit.

The release finally states that UIA has received requests from the entities that represent companies from Mercosur member countries “to evaluate actions that tend to respond to this situation and to continue with the process of integration, an essential condition for our development”.

In this regard, “an urgent meeting of the Industrial Mercosur Council in Montevideo has been called for”.