MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lacalle Pou agreed with Bolsonaro in Brasilia to make Mercosur more flexible

“I am leaving for Uruguay very satisfied, very happy”, said Lacalle Pou, in a press conference, after a meeting with Bolsonaro in Brasilia.

The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, traveled overseas for the first time to meet with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in a meeting in which they discussed the idea of “making Mercosur more flexible” and the possibility of a face-to-face summit with the leaders of Argentina and Paraguay at the end of March.

Accompanied by the Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo, Lacalle Pou remarked the visit as successful. “I am leaving for Uruguay very satisfied, very happy”, said Lacalle Pou, in a press conference, after concluding a meeting in Brasilia with Bolsonaro at the Brazilian Government headquarters, where he was.

“We belong to Mercosur, we are about to celebrate 30 years of this association and, like any association, we have to review it and look at it, and the next step in this modern world is to make it more flexible, so that each country that still belongs can move forward”, said the Uruguayan president.

In addition to talking about the bloc they form together with Argentina and Paraguay, the Uruguayan president mentioned that a second key point of the agenda between Uruguay and Brazil is focused on waterways.

“We have a very big agenda that the ministers will deal with, but today I return to my country with the news that we have agreed on the enormous number of issues that is the freedom of our peoples, prosperity and of course the good relationship and communion in this case of Uruguay and Brazil”, concluded Lacalle Pou.

Bolsonaro, “honored” for this visit, said that he “brought here the president of Uruguay who is an invited, an informal visit, I had lunch with him. A lot of things in informality, but some things, obviously, important. Uruguay is a friend of ours, an important country that is part of Mercosur. We talked about the possibility of making each country's business with other countries more flexible”, he agreed.

In the same line he added that he discussed “with the President of Uruguay a possible meeting of the four presidents of Mercosur possibly for the end of March”, and anticipated that the meeting could take place in the border city of Foz do Iguaçu.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Ernesto Araújo, said that for the moment there are two projects to be highlighted between Brazil and Uruguay:
“First, the dredging of the Merín Lagoon and the second is about the Yaguarón bridge, a second bridge. There is now a very old bridge and managing to build another one will revitalize the previous one.”