MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina/UK joint statement is “not an agreement”, but a raft of principles and intentions

Each issue in the statement will merit meetings, discussions and negotiations previous to advances, underlined Argentine deputy minister Foradori

The Argentine/UK political convergence to promote bilateral dialogue and advance in areas of common interest for both parts “is not a closed agreement but a Joint Statement which describes principles and relates intentions”, pointed out Argentine deputy minister Carlos Foradori in an interview with Buenos Aires daily Clarin.

 Foradori was referring to this week's Argentina/UK future cooperation statement on a long list of issues, including the South Atlantic, which was implemented by foreign minister Susana Malcorra and UK Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan who spent a couple of days in Buenos Aires together with a delegation of top British companies leaders to attend a Business and Investment Forum.

“Each case, each issue, be it natural resources, the identification of the Argentine fallen combatants buried in Darwin, or air links will have to be agreed in formal deals which will merit meetings, discussions and negotiations previous to advances, and of particular consideration”, underlined the Argentine official.

Foradori added that the joint statement has a common denominator and that is “bilateral dialogue”, an equation which recognizes many issues to be addressed between both sides with common objectives such as combating the drugs trade, terrorism, supporting human rights as well as trade and investment.

This is the starting point to consider the “more expeditious ways to reach our shared objectives, but we must also be aware that the path is full of issues which make to Argentina's interests, and belong to that 80% mass in our relations with the UK to which Malcorra recurrently refers. That is the 80% of the positive agenda at a crucial moment when Argentina is returning to the world”.

Although the specifics of the cooperation joint statement still have to be worked out, Argentine sources stated that a bilateral meeting next week in the framework of the UN General Assembly in New York, between president Mauricio Macri and PM Theresa May would represent a strong ratification of the statement.

Short of time and despite efforts for a formal meeting, the two leaders only managed to shake hands at the recent G20 summit held in China.

However according to the statement, the Argentine congress will have to repeal legislation which specifically targets those companies and agents involved in the fishing and hydrocarbons industries operating in Falklands' waters.

Quite a challenge since the current vice-president of the Argentine Senate, and Macri's operator in Congress, Federico Pinedo, must work up the necessary votes to comply with the cooperation spirit of the joint statement, despite the fact that when in the opposition Pinedo openly supported legislation, bill 26.659 from 2013, that imposed heavy fines on oil companies in the Falklands and threatened their CEOs and managers with jail terms.

The Macri-Malcorra view of future events regarding the cooperation joint statement and referred to the Falklands, seems to be the one prevailing when the 1999 Robin Cook/Guido Di Tella discussions which among other things re-established the air link of the Islands with the South American continent.

And the idea was that it was hard to know if it's the best possible agreement, but “let's sign now because with Argentina tomorrow can always be worse”.