Paraguay’s incoming government foreign policy advisor Eladio Loizaga downplayed Mercosur veiled warning calling for a quick return of the country to the block because ‘Paraguay is landlocked and needs the Parana River and the River Plate to reach the sea’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, met with Paraguayan president Federico Franco at the start of his two-day official visit to Asunción.
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.
Paraguayan president elect Horacio Cartes confirmed that his government will insist in its position regarding Mercosur, which expects Paraguay to return as full active member following the inauguration ceremony 15 August.