MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mujica and Lula da Silva discuss promoting regional integration as a doctrine

The Uruguayan president and his host Lula da Silva recovering from cancer treatment

Uruguayan president Jose Mujica and former leader Lula da Silva, under treatment for larynx cancer, said in Sao Paulo on Tuesday that they would like to have a group of Latin American intellectuals involved in the discussion and promotion of regional integration as a doctrine.

“We’re committed to bringing together a group of intellectuals and thinkers so they can help give shape and body to an integration doctrine”, said Mujica following an informal meeting with the former Brazilian president, both with a long record of left wing militancy.

“We wanted to talk about politics, how Lula is seeing the world and the different options opened for the Americas”, added Mujica who said that for this “it is necessary for Latam intellectuals to construct an integration policy matrix”.

The former urban guerrilla leader and now president and First Lady Lucia Topolansky visited Lula da Silva in Sao Paulo for a pre-arranged interview and shared lunch at a Sao Paulo hotel. In the morning the former Brazilian president who is said to be rapidly recovering underwent another chemotherapy session, the tenth out of a total of 33.

The meeting was an invitation from the ‘Cidadania’ think-tank started by the former president when he left office over a year ago.

Mujica said that South America is going through “a unique moment, as never before” and in spite of all the difficulties “it never dreamt with being a Latin America with the strength we have nowadays”.

“People don’t realize the significance of integration for their own lives, and maybe China does not need integration, but we do and that has been the main concern of Lula and about that we had a long chat”, revealed the Uruguayan leader.

“For over 300 years the countries of the region ignored each other while looking to Europe, but now has arrived the moment to revert that situation with a Mercosur which has grown economically and in terms of trade but needs to overcome some institutional challenges”.

Following lunch and discussions between ‘old friends’ the Uruguayan couple were invited to a tour of Sao Paulo city museums, said Jose Crispiniano spokesperson for the Cidadania think-tank.