Alberto Fernández speaks at the Mercosur summit | “We must make Mercosur strong”

“Mercosur must live many more years, it must live forever”

After pointing out the potential of a possible regional agreement to export gas and food, Fernández returned to one of the most tense issues of the day: Uruguay’s decision to move forward with a Free Trade Agreement with China.

“The only thing I ask of everyone is that we are not deluded by the idea of ​​separating, that we are not deluded by the idea of ​​looking for individual solutionsto come out with a project of my own that reaches me, because all that is short-lived,” he said first, without mentioning the agreement.

And he added, in a direct message to Uruguay: “I do not refuse to analyze everything that has to be analyzed in what my dear Luis Lacalle Pou calls the flexibility of Mercosur, because I realize that I am living in a world that is changing and that in that change we’re walking on the ledge. And I don’t want any of us to fall off the ledge.”

But “tomorrow is always better and we can begin to build it today, in unity, making us part of what the other is doing,” said Fernández. “We don’t know when the war ends, how much poverty that war is going to bring. So why don’t we join forces to make it as painless as possible?” he said.

“Just as we did with Singapore, which was possible, if there was the possibility of China having an agreement with Mercosur, why don’t we analyze it together?” he reflected. “Because the agreement is going to be more important if we include the 200 million inhabitants that Brazil has,” she exemplified.

The Argentine proposalhe said in closing, is “to begin to found another Mercosur, where we lend ourselves the powers that we are and have so that we can all be more powerful”.

“I invite you to think regarding that before thinking regarding what some newspapers headlined 2 years ago when Luis spoke regarding his idea of ​​thinking regarding China: ‘Mercosur is dying’. No, Mercosur must live many more years, must live forever. And Latin America and the Caribbean must be united once and for all, because the world has changed geopolitically. And if we do not understand it and believe that each one can be saved on their own, the teaching of Pope Francis will not have been understood: no one is saved alone”, he concluded.

“I want a society where everyone wins”

During his speech at the Mercosur summit, Fernández referred to “the possibility of making green hydrogen” and selling it to Europe. “In Argentina we have an 8.6 billion dollar project that has already started. We have the second unconventional gas reserve that allows us to export gas in huge quantities. Why don’t we start working together? Because Argentina has the gas and that way one of you can help with the financing”, he proposed.

In that framework, recognized that there are “asymmetries that Paraguay and Uruguay have with respect to Brazil and Argentina” and said that “that must be resolved”. “Why don’t we see doing a project together like the one in Argentina but where you are partners and you also win? I don’t like to exploit asymmetries, I want a society where everyone wins“.

“We are in a continent that has what the world is looking for tomorrow and if we don’t realize that we have to be more united than ever, we are going to make the worst of mistakes,” he insisted.

“We have before us a formidable opportunity to go to the aid of the hungry world”

Given the current war scenario, the president added, “The two big concerns are where we are going to get food and where we are going to get energy”.

Faced with this, Fernández continued, It must be taken into account that “Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina are huge food producers”Thus “We have before us a formidable opportunity to go to the aid of the hungry worldif we know how to agree to take advantage of the opportunity”.

In addition to being major food suppliers, the president continued, “we can be great suppliers of energy” since “between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina we have the largest lithium reserves in the world”.

“What would happen if we agree to work on a lithium union that allows us to produce and give the world the lithium it needs and is demanding?” he asked his peers.

“A continent without a vocation for war”

In another section of his speech, Fernández stressed that although “we live in the most unequal continent,” it is “a continent without a vocation for war” and “that is a great advantage for the times we live in.”

However, “just as bullets fly in the north, hunger flies in the south. And that is what we cannot continue to allow,” he remarked. “All of us who are part of the continent want peace. But what we should want besides peace is a fairer continentmore balanced, more egalitarian, where we can talk more and make joint decisions, because the world that is coming is the world of regions, not the world of countries”.

Within this framework, he insisted that “we must make our region stronger, because as we speak all this climate change is still happening” and “Central America suffers from it, which used to be fertile areas and today are arid and lost areas for agricultural production” or “the Caribbean, where every day its islands sink a little more”.

“The world is going to face a famine that is going to hurt 300 million inhabitants”

“FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) announced a month ago that as cAs a consequence of this armed conflict, the world is going to face a famine that is going to hurt 300 million inhabitants. Where are those inhabitants? In our hemisphere,” said Alberto Fernández.

“Faced with such a reality, don’t we have to see how we protect ourselves, how we guarantee that this doesn’t happen?” he asked.

“The countries of the southern hemisphere are the main victims”

The head of state recalled that during the G7 he warned that the countries of the southern hemisphere “are the main victims” and they were not called to discuss the war between Russia and Ukraine. “And there they had the intelligence and generosity to invite the president of the African Union, to invite the prime minister of India and to invite me as president of CELAC,” he said.

And he added: “You have to listen to Europe say that it runs out of energy. You have to listen to Europe say that its inflation increases by 300, 400, 500 percent. You have to listen to the United States say that its inflation increases by 800 percent. (…). You have to see how suddenly coal became important once more when we all came and talked regarding the need for green, environmental issues.”

He also assured that “we have to realize the world we are in” because if not “we are going to make mistakes.”

“Hunger began to besiege the entire world”

Alberto Fernández pointed out that due to the war between Russia and Ukraine “the world is experiencing enormous complexity.”

“When Russia and Ukraine entered the war, what must be clear is that millions of tons of wheat, cereals, sunflowers left the market, that 75 percent of the oil that is consumed in Europe and comes from Ukraine also disappeared. and that famine began to besiege the entire world”.

“The pandemic generated a break year in the world economy”

Alberto Fernández warned at the Mercosur summit that “the pandemic generated a year of breakage in the world economy.” “For a year the world economy was paralyzed and we all suffered, others more and others less, but no one was safe.”

The president pointed out that “we began to recover the following year, some more and others less” and that “when the gradual recovery began to appear that it was sustained, a war broke out in the northern hemisphere that has the consequences of the time we live in.”

“Do you know what has changed since Mercosur was founded? What has changed the most is that in those days globalization was in its infancy and one did not fully understand the dimension, but today globalization works fully and what happens in any latitude of the world has an inexorable impact on all regions of the world,” he said.

“The time that we have had to govern is a singularly difficult time in the world”

“The occasion serves for us to reflect together on the challenges that lie ahead as the Latin American peoples that we are -said President Alberto Fernández-. The time that we have had to govern is a singularly difficult time in the world”.

And he added: “Unfortunately, this is a product of what the world has experienced, of which perhaps not all of us take full measure of the seriousness of the problem. Argentina inherited what it inherited, I am not going to bore you with the economic situation it experienced and the level of indebtedness that he received. But 99 days following being president we find ourselves with a pandemic that devastated the world, which found it unprotected. Many of our countries had disarmed health systems and an enormous effort had to be made to rebuild those systems and be able to deal with what the pandemic generated”.