This Friday the Malvinas Forum, chapter Uruguay will be celebrating its first anniversary and is expected to announce a statement strongly rejecting the coming referendum in the Falklands on the Islands political status which is scheduled for March 10/11. The meeting will be held in Maldonado where it was originally launched.
The Uruguayan government through the Ministry of Defence gave the green light to a local air cargo company, Airclass which requested authorization to make a commercial flight to the Falkland Islands sometime this month.
Falkland Islanders reacted with skepticism and further distrust to the latest announcements by Argentine president Cristina Fernandez regarding air links with Argentina, while Falklands’ elected lawmakers said the proposal was too ‘muddled’ and with errors for the local government to respond.
Relations with the Uruguayan government couldn’t be better, with no obstacles ahead, and much of the success of the Uruguayan economy is influenced by Argentina, said ambassador in Montevideo Dante Dovena.
The Argentine government sees with good eyes that a Uruguayan trade delegation travelled to the Falklands/Malvinas in spite of the ‘dialectic conflict’ with the UK over the sovereignty of the Islands, said the Argentine ambassador in Montevideo, Dante Dovena.
The Argentine ambassador in Uruguay, Dante Dovena said this week that French president Nicholas Sarkozy statement at the G20 summit, in reference to Uruguay (as a tax haven) is not shared by his government.
Uruguay and Argentina are discussing a ‘fast track’ mechanism that will allow Uruguayan exports to have quick access to the neighbour’s market thus avoiding the controversial trade restrictions recently announced by the administration of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and which have surprised Mercosur partners.
The chairman of the Uruguayan Chamber of Industry, Washington Burghi, warned that Argentina’s decision to restrict imports could be “the beginning of the end” for the Mercosur. However Argentine ambassador in Montevideo said decisions are targeted against Asian imports with the purpose of defending Argentine jobs.
Uruguayan president Jose Mujica underlined the strong common links going back to the birth of Argentina and Uruguay and called for an end to the “ports’ war” (Montevideo vs Buenos Aires) a rivalry born when the two countries were provinces of the colonial Spanish empire.