MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fernández thanks G77+China for supporting Argentina's claim over Falkland/Malvinas

“The US hegemony is not what it used to be and there is a Europe in a crisis that began with Brexit,” Fernández argued

Argentine President Alberto Fernández warned Friday in Cuba that there is still “a dominant world and a dominated world” while calling all countries attending the G77+China Summit in Havana to “put an end to it forever.”

Fernández also thanked the other delegations for “always accompanying” Argentina's claim over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. “For many years we have been demanding the United Kingdom to sit down again at a negotiating table to solve, in the logic of multilateralism, problems that we have seen our territorial sovereignty broken, due to the undue occupation of Argentine lands. My gratitude goes to all those who have accompanied us,” he stressed.

“In the global south, there is what the central world is needing,” Fernández also said. He mentioned food, energy, lithium, “and the opportunity to demand equality”, because “the technological revolution is unstoppable.”

He also called for greater South-South cooperation in areas such as science and technology, highlighting Argentina's contributions to nuclear energy, biotechnology, and space developments. “In my country, there are candidates who want to succeed me who say that Argentina is not to produce science and technology. This is a lie.”

In a 19-minute speech at the Convention Palace, Fernández also spoke about BRICS and criticized the IMF and the World Bank. He urged the world to “change the financial system that continues to operate with the same logic” while insisting “that we are living a change of era.”

“Once again we see the WB and the IMF applying the orthodox logic that led us to this state of crisis, of concentration of income in a few and a distribution of poverty in millions of human beings in this world”, he pointed out.

“How much longer are we going to put up with the IMF following the rates set by the US government through its Federal Reserve and applying the overcharged rates suffered by countries such as Ecuador, Barbados, Argentina, Egypt, or Ukraine? Are they so worried about Ukraine that they are charging such a levy?” he added.

“The US hegemony is not what it used to be and there is a Europe in a crisis that began with Brexit and continues with Russia's invasion of Ukrainian territory,” he went on. At the same time, “two enormous powers such as China and India have appeared and are diametrically changing international trade,” the Argentine leader also noted.

Hence, he said BRICS represented “44% of humanity and 36% of the GDP”, so it is already “more than the G7.”

Fernández also underlined that “90% of the [Covid-19] vaccines” remained in the hands of the “10 powerful countries in the world.”

“It was that very moment that exposed the fact that there are 11 fortunes in the world that have as much money as 40% of humanity,” he added before a forum representing 80% of the world's population and is considered the largest intergovernmental organization within the UN.

“Such inequality forces us to rethink the world. And there, the South, the G77+China has a lot to say,” he said. In this context, he welcomed the decision taken at the G20 summit in India to add the African Union as a permanent member and repeated that he also requested that Celac be incorporated.

“It is imperative that the Caribbean be heard, because typhoons, cyclones, storms, rising seas, those who suffer most are the countries of the Caribbean,” Fernández also argued.

The President also said that “the climate crisis” causes “pain” and recalled that his country “has just endured the worst drought in 100 years that deprived exports that represent 3 points of its GDP.”

Fernández also offered his solidarity to the delegations of Morocco, due to the recent earthquake, and Libya, due to the severe floods.