MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina's chances of advancing Malvinas claim not enhanced by Brexit, says Cisneros

“Even weakened, you can't force the UK to engage in sovereignty discussions. Not even inside or outside of the EU. And we are far from that”, said Cisneros

The Leave victory in UK and its impact on the Falklands and Argentina's ongoing claim over the Islands was addressed by Argentine academics and diplomats. Probably the man with most experience and knowledge in the trilateral relation between London, Buenos Aires and the Falklands is former Deputy foreign minister Andres Cisneros, who worked next to Guido Di Tella.

 “The split from the European Union generates for London the eventuality of a loss of support in the block. In the Lisbon accord, a proto European constitution, lies support for British sovereignty over the Malvinas, but it could very well lose it”. However “plenty of time yet to go before a discussion on Argentina's Malvinas sovereignty claim”, points out Cisneros.

Further on the former diplomat argued that “even weakened, you can't force the UK to engage in sovereignty discussions. Not even inside or outside of the EU. And we are far from that. I believe negotiations will begin in 40, maybe 50 years. First of all we must become an important country so they don't ignore us”.

And in an interesting turn, Cisneros said that it will all depend (regarding the Falklands) when UK/EU negotiations begin, and “it's going to be followed by a long, very long practical implementation of this complex 'divorce'. It will take years”.

And this scenario will not depend so much on Argentina but on UK/EU negotiations. In effect, according to Cisneros, London promised the EU participation in the South Atlantic and Antarctica, based on British sovereignty rights. “The EU does not have them, the UK does have them. It will become another negotiation inside the 'divorce', and I'm sure the EU won't want to be left out of Antarctica and the South Atlantic”.

Daniel Filmus the former secretary of the now defunct Malvinas Islands Affairs Office was more enthusiastic and straight forward arguing that the fact that UK is leaving EU, ”is a historic opportunity and we hope the current (Macri) government takes advantage of it“.

”All multilateral organizations, all blocks around the world support the Argentine position regarding Malvinas, based on UN General Assembly resolution 2065. The only potential allies which abstained were the Europeans, who supported the British stance because they belonged to the community, however this has changed“, said Filmus.

”Now there are chances that each European country defines support in accordance with its traditions to end colonialism. Even inside the UK, we know there are different positions, I mean Scotland, Wales and Ireland, regarding Malvinas“.

However it's not an overnight process, ”but we must take advantage of the opportunity“, said Filmus who is currently a member of Parlasur. Finally the former Kirchnerite official said he was most satisfied with foreign minister Susana Malcorra's presentation before the C24 Decolonization Committee since it ”sustained the historic tradition of Argentina regarding Malvinas sovereignty claims”.