MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Buenos Aires: EuroLat due to vote on agreed topics

CFK stressed that international law must be respected by all countries

Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernàndez de Kirchner (CFK) welcomed to Buenos Aires' Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK) the more than 100 lawmakers who participated in this year's Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) sessions under the slogan “A fair, inclusive, and peaceful economic recovery.”

The multi-national Parliamentarian group is to vote Thursday on the topics agreed upon by the various working groups

“The pandemic has disrupted lives, governments and the entire planet,” said CFK during the opening session of the fourteenth EuroLat Parliamentary Assembly was plenum at the National Auditorium “La Ballena Azul.” Working sessions spanned April 11 through 14.

CFK stated that “the pandemic has disrupted lives, governments and the entire planet” and “it tragically accentuated inequality.” She also pointed out that “even in great tragedies we can learn things that are useful to us.”

The Senate Speaker underlined that “the pandemic came to reinstate the idea of the State” and wondered: “Has anyone ever wondered what would have become of everyone's lives if the States had not intervened by building hospitals and negotiating vaccines to save us?”

“Anyone who continues to claim that the State is not important in people's lives is either a fool or a cynic, and there are both,” she said, as she insisted that the governments of the world must “focus on achieving a new engineering” to address “the problem of inequality with greater efficiency, justice and equity.”

She also stressed that international law must be respected by all countries. “That we abide by international law and the resolutions of the United Nations is a great idea that is not being applied and that the world requires,” she pointed out.

“Of the five countries that make up the Security Council with a permanent seat and the right to veto, all of them - except China - have at some point not respected the norms of international law. We have denounced the double standard of the powers that believe themselves to be above the countries and do not respect international law. The occupation of Malvinas by force finds the United Kingdom supported by other powers that, when it is not convenient for them to support an invasion, reject it, and when it is convenient for them because they are their allies, it is all right,” she went on.

The former Argentine President also wondered how much power Parliaments, Executives, or Judiciaries had if they were more often than never “co-opted by economic factors.” She claimed that she knew from her own experience that “to be given a sash and a baton” was not tantamount to having real power.

CFK also questioned the fact that she had been prosecuted for alleged irregularities during her term but no judge noticed any irregularity or illegality “when our country was indebted with the largest and illegal loan in memory, due to the way it was granted by the IMF.”

The EuroLat working groups are expected to convene Thursday for a vote on the topics agreed upon.

Among other issues, EuroLat members were to discuss criminal cooperation, hate speech, monitoring of trade negotiations and agreements, and the development of digital platforms, in addition to cultural, social, and educational matters, with a focus on Food Security and Fight against Hunger in a post-pandemic context gripped by the impact of the war in Ukraine on the global food market. Other discussions will focus on the fight against drug trafficking and women's sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the situation of LGBTI rights in the EU and Latin America.

The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) is the parliamentary institution of the Bicontinental Strategic Partnership, established in June 1999 within the framework of the EU-LAC Summits (between the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean).