The president seeks to accelerate the signing of the treaty with the European bloc in order to advance in the negotiations with China hand in hand with Brazil.
President Luis Lacalle Pou met today in Brussels with his pair of France, Emmanuel Macron, within the framework of the Summit of Presidents of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and the European Union (EU). The bilateral meeting had Uruguay as one of the main interested parties for the concretion of the agreement between the regional blocs; and the European as the main opponent.
The government longs for the signing of the agreement Mercosur-EU as long as it is constituted as the previous step for any negotiation in block with China and, therefore, one step closer to being able to close a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Asian country, Uruguay’s main trading partner and to whom Lacalle Pou bets a large part of his economic legacy.
With this in mind, the Uruguayan president met with his French counterpart to discuss the issue, despite the fact that —or, above all, because— he is the one who has made the most objections to the signing of an FTA between the mercosur and the EU, with proposals on agro-industrial production and environmental protection issues.
The objective of the Latin American bloc, headed by the Brazil of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is to close the trade agreement with Europe in less than a year. For Uruguay, this would be good news, not so much because of the agreement itself, but because the Brazilian president made it clear that his priority before moving forward with China is to close the negotiations with the EU, which have been going on for 20 years.
Bilateral meetings in a summit clue
Lacalle Pou also held different meetings on Monday, the first day of the Summit that brings together the presidents of Celac and the European Union. One of them, of an informal nature, was with the Head of State of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, in the first meeting after the media crossover they had for the water crisis in the metropolitan area of the country.
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He also met with the president of the European Comission, Ursula von der Leyenas well as with the president of the Parliament, Roberta Metsolaand the president of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer.
Source: Ambito
