The Union of South American Nations, UNASUR summit will take place in Paraguay next October 29 in the sidelines of the two-day XXI Ibero-American meeting of heads of government and state, revealed the Paraguayan Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Lara Castro.
Argentina ratified this week the free trade agreement reached between Mercosur and Israel, the first to be signed by the South American block with an outer zone party.
The Mercosur summit will be an opportunity to solve asymmetry problems and social inequalities in the region, said Paraguay’ Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Lara Castro. The South American customs union is meeting this week in Asuncion for the first of two annual summits when the rotating chair will be passed on to Uruguay.
The existence of ‘inconveniences’ with Mercosur largest economies is delaying reaching a trade agreement with the European Union, according to Germany’s Ambassador before the government of Paraguay, Claude Robert Ellner.
Venezuela in Mercosur will act as a balancing element and Unasur has more than proven its merits, said Paraguay’s new Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Lara Castro who insisted the country must work urgently to overcome asymmetries in the region and passive integration is not enough.
An academic seminar “20 years of Mercosur” will be the main celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the South American trade block, unable to convene political figures from the four full member countries to commemorate the 26 March 1991 founding charter or Asuncion Treaty.
Paraguay has a new Foreign Affaire minister, Jorge Lara Castro who until now was Deputy to Hector Lacognata and who had presented his resignation three weeks ago.