The Mercosur summit closed with renewed criticism of its operation and satisfaction with the agreement with the EU

The XLV summit of heads of state of the Mercosur closed this Friday in Montevideo with signs of satisfaction from the member countries, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguayfor the agreement sealed with the European Union (EU) to create the largest free trade area in the world, but with renewed criticism of the little flexibility that the bloc gives its members to achieve trade agreements.

The first to speak was the Argentine president, Xavier Mileiwhich debuted at the regional forum after missing the June meeting in Asunción. “The common bloc has harmed us, we locked ourselves in our own fishbowl,” he said after widely criticizing the tariff policy.

“Mercosur ended up being a prison that does not allow countries to take advantage of their comparative advantages or their export potential,” he stated, accompanied by the head of Economy, Luis Caputo.

“I would like to invite you, as brothers that we are, to open our eyes and be intellectually honest; let us accept that this model is exhausted and look for a new formula that benefits us all, so that we can all trade more and better, because it is trade what generates prosperity and what will put an end to the great Latin American scourge, which is the abject poverty of our people,” Milei asked.

In turn, the Brazilian president Lula da Silvaassured that “this summit has a very special meaning: it marks the conclusion of the negotiations of the Mercosur-EU agreement, in which our countries have invested enormous political and diplomatic capital for almost three decades.”

He highlighted that the signed document “differs quite a bit from the one announced in 2019.” “The conditions we inherited were unacceptable, it was necessary to incorporate issues of high relevance for Mercosur into the agreement,” he explained and pointed out as an example the preservation of public purchases, the extension of the opening calendar of the automotive market to preserve industrial capacity. and the added mechanisms to avoid the unilateral withdrawal of the concessions reached.

“The global geopolitical and economic reality shows us that integration strengthens our societies, modernizes our productive structures and promotes our more competitive insertion in the world. Our external agenda is positioning Mercosur again in international trade,” Lula insisted.

The president of Paraguay, Santiago Penasaid he was a “dissatisfied optimist” regarding the trade agreement with the EU. “Integration is a lifestyle. This is a positive step, but totally unsatisfactory in what Mercosur gives us to all countries,” he reflected.

“Today an opportunity opens up with the EU, the wealth is here, we have to understand this historical moment and Paraguay is on the list of dissatisfied optimists“optimistic because we want to see the glass half full and dissatisfied because we want more,” he stressed.

Mercosur Summit Montevideo

Photo: Presidency of Brazil

At the summit, where the president-elect was present Yamandu Orsi, Luis Lacalle Pou He said goodbye to the forum and, in addition, handed over the pro tempore presidency to Argentina. “At the end of my government, what I viewed with great skepticism happens: the signing of the agreement with the European Union,” said the president, who then spoke of the other presidents of the member states, due to the alphabetical order in which the interventions were organized. In this, he especially thanked Lula da Silva for his primary role in finalizing the negotiations after 25 years.

However, he took advantage of the occasion to put back on the table the great pending issue that, in his opinion, now remains for the regional bloc: the FTA with Chinaremembering Lula’s words when he asked to close the agreement with the EU first before moving forward in talks with the Asian country.

“I want to take advantage of this moment because at my side I have the president who is going to take office on March 1, and I have to be very careful that these processes that are going to last more than 86 days follow a national path, but I dare to speak in name of all Uruguayans,” he noted before remembering that in 2017 it was Tabare Vazquez who announced the signing of a treaty with China, and that his government “believing that it was the path to follow”, resumed that negotiation.

Lacalle Pou entrusted his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei, to take the lead in the demand for flexibility that he himself kept present in recent years. “I said that I had taken the pitcher to the fountain for a long time and that it had not broken. Now, when I leave and leave the presidency to you, maybe I will leave you the pitcher that is a little dented, has some cracks, maybe we have good luck in achieving that,” he told him, although he reminded him that “it must be achieved in a good way, with a good tone.”

During the summit, Panama signed its accession to the South American bloc. In his speech, the president José Raúl Mulinoadvocated for regional integration and made a fiery defense of his country’s fiscal integrity, asking for Mercosur’s collaboration to be removed from international black lists.