Uruguay's President Luis Lacalle Pou Monday stood by the words he said during Friday's virtual Mercosur Summit which led to a rife with his Argentina counterpart Alberto Fernández.
In the aftermath of Friday's presidential clash between Alberto Fernández and Uruguay's Luis Lacalle Pou over the Mercosur's alleged lack of “flexibility,” Argentine Foreign Ministry's Cabinet Chief Guillermo Chaves said Saturday in a radio interview that the bloc's fundamental identity was to negotiate jointly on behalf of all members, but if each partner was allowed to hold deals individually, the association would lose its raison d'être.
Argentine President Alberto Fernández told his Uruguayan counterpart Luis Lacalle Pou his country did not want to be “a burden on anyone” when the latter called for signs of “flexibilization” on the part of Mercosur to allow member states to seek unilateral foreign trade agreements elsewhere without the bloc's approval.
The Mercosur face-to-face presidential summit scheduled for 26th March originally planned to take place in Argentina that currently holds the rotating chair of the block, will be held online because of the sanitary situation in the region.
Argentina pledged on Thursday to manage Bolivia's entry into Mercosur, after both countries relaunched their trade relationship during the official visit of the Argentine Foreign Minister, Felipe Solá, who sees the need to approve the full entry of the Andean country at the next Mercosur summit to be held on March 26.
The upcoming Summit of Heads of State of the Southern Common Market Mercosur, to be held in late June or early July this year, will be held in Encarnacion, capital of Itapúa Department, Paraguay.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday that Mercosur trade block needs to hurry up and implement agreements the group has negotiated.
In what was his last international activity, outgoing president Mauricio Macri attended the 55th Mercosur leaders summit in Bento Goncalves, southern Brazil, which he described as a special diplomatic occasion for his administration's strive to put Argentina back in the wide world map.
The political and economic crisis in Venezuela was the center of the political debate among the heads of state that, this Wednesday, met in Santa Fe, Argentina in the Mercosur semi-annual summit, a block from which the Caribbean country is currently suspended. Neither Uruguay, Bolivia nor Chile addressed a word regarding the Venezuelan situation.
Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez Tuesday denied having sought to meet privately with his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro during Wednesday's Mercosur summit in Santa Fe, Argentina.