Mercosur

• Wednesday, July 31st 2013 - 06:23 UTC

  Paraguay president Franco congratulates Mujica on his knowledge of geography

  

  Paraguayan president Federico Franco replied to his Uruguayan peer Jose Mujica ironic remarks saying that ‘evidently he’s good at geography; I guess he passed with the highest grades’ since he is aware that Paraguay is a landlocked ‘Mediterranean’ country.

• Wednesday, July 31st 2013 - 06:09 UTC

  Ecuador’s Correa pondering whether to join Mercosur or the Pacific Alliance

  

  President Rafael Correa said that the determining factor for Ecuador to join as full member of Mercosur or the Alliance of the Pacific is the ‘flexibility’ granted in certain admission conditions, taking into account the fact that Ecuador does not have a national currency.

• Tuesday, July 30th 2013 - 03:54 UTC

  Mujica in veiled message tells Paraguay to return to Mercosur and remember it’s a landlocked country

  

  Uruguayan president Jose Mujica was ironic about the conditions Paraguayan president elect Horacio Cartes demanded for his country’s return to Mercosur, but also in a veiled message called for ‘intelligence and pragmatism’ recalling that Paraguay is a landlocked country.

• Friday, July 26th 2013 - 06:02 UTC

  OAS chief Insulza honoured as “a dear friend of Paraguay”

  

  Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) received on Wednesday the National Order Award of Merit, ‘Don Jose Falcon’ from the government of Paraguay.

• Thursday, July 25th 2013 - 06:06 UTC

  OAS chief praises Cartes and says Paraguay must not be excluded from Mercosur

  

  The Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Wednesday that Paraguay should return to Mercosur because “it’s not good to have exclusions in South America”, but insisted that the solution to the problem is in the hands of the ‘protagonists’ and not in president elect Horacio Cartes.

• Thursday, July 25th 2013 - 02:33 UTC

  Brazil prepared to change Mercosur negotiation strategy to spur agreement with the EU

  

  Brazil wants to change the way Mercosur negotiates trade agreements with the European Union, EU, so as to definitively advance with the ongoing discussions that were started in 1995, but still have to see concrete results, according to Brazilian official trade and diplomatic sources.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 07:34 UTC

  Paraguay ready to return to Mercosur but is talking trade with Mexico, US and the Pacific Alliance

  

  Paraguay is ready to return to Mercosur as long as there is respect the country’s dignity, but at the same time will look for other trade and cooperation opportunities with Mexico, United States and the Pacific Alliance, said the Paraguayan ambassador in Washington.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 07:29 UTC

  Argentina/Brazil trade disputes reached a ‘furious level’ during Mercosur last summit in Montevideo

  

  International issues helped Mercosur to close ranks and give a false image of unity during the last summit held in Uruguay, according to diplomatic sources in Montevideo that are surfacing details of a bitter exchange behind doors between Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff.

• Tuesday, July 23rd 2013 - 08:06 UTC

  Argentina refuses to inform Paraguay on a nuclear reactor it is planning along the border

  

  The administration of President Cristina Fernandez rejected a request from Paraguay on the nuclear plant, and area of influence, Argentina plans to build in the neighbouring province of Formosa. The situation was exposed by Paraguayan lawmaker Olga Ferreira de Lopez who called the Argentine president a ‘perverse woman’.

• Monday, July 22nd 2013 - 06:29 UTC

  Mercosur chair not interested in restoring normal relations with US

  

  Venezuela says it's ending talks with the United States to restore normal relations because Washington's UN ambassador-designate criticized its human rights record. Venezuela currently holds the chair of Mercosur.