2023-07-03 19:43:30
The Government of Uruguay reiterated on Monday its claims to strengthen Mercosur and now proposed moving towards a regional structure called the “Southern Common Zone (Zocosur)” to expedite trade. The idea was known in the framework of the summit that takes place in Misiones and that tomorrow will bring together the heads of state of the member countries.
“What we simply said is that we will continue advancing in what is an objective for Uruguay, which is a better international insertion,” said Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo at the beginning of the event.
Bustillo proposed in Iguazú to create the Zocosur, because “after more than thirty years, what has been done is to travel a path that has departed from the first founding article 1 of Mercosur, which proposed creating a common market in four years, and they have passed more than thirty”, according to what he told the Latin American news channel DNEWS.
“In the best of cases and what would be possible is to create a free trade zone, what I have come to call the Zocosur,” Bustillo said.
The official from the neighboring country pointed out that the Government of Uruguay tried to carry out a series of modifications in Mercosur, for which six months ago he raised “the real possibility of ending all the restrictions that exist within the bloc to form the first stage of integration that It is the free trade zone.
When asked if he sees concrete possibilities for Uruguay to leave Mercosur, the foreign minister stated that this will depend on the will and an agreement between all the country’s political parties. “Regarding what membership of the bloc is, it is a decision that Uruguay will undoubtedly have to consider at some point, either to modify the founding treaty itself or eventually consider the possibility of leaving Mercosur as a State. founding and become an associated State”, he commented.
Luis Lacalle Pou and Alberto Fernandez.
For his part, Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero reaffirmed Argentina’s commitment to “diversify” Mercosur’s external agenda and asked to review the agreement with the European Union (EU) without “ideologized speeches”, opening the Ordinary Meeting of the Common Market Council (CMC) of the block, which precedes the summit of presidents.
From the center of the Iguazú National Park, Cafiero pointed out that the agreement signed between Mercosur and the EU in 2019 was out of date and pointed out that the green protectionism proposed from Brussels “implies in practice a protection of products from developed countries that affects the commerce in general and, very especially, to food producers”.
“Argentina shares the objective of advancing in the agreement and has worked in this direction,” said Cafiero, who also considered that an understanding with the old continent could be “an effective vehicle for Mercosur to strengthen its participation in the global readjustment ” and to “catalyze investments”.
He explained to his peers that “in order to materialize it and have good results” it is necessary to “work and update the 2019 texts” because they reflect, he said, “an uneven effort of asymmetric blocks.”
“The GDP of the EU is 6 times larger than that of Mercosur, and 25 of the 27 countries have a higher development index than any of our bloc,” he graphed.
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