Some MEPs expressed their concern about the Argentine president-elect’s vision of multilateralism.
The choice of Javier Milei as president of Argentina cast a cloud of doubts about the possibility of a free trade agreement between the Mercosur and the European Union (EU)as stated by some MEPs this Tuesday in Brussels, Belgium).
The Spanish-Argentine MEP Mónica Gonzálezof the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) believes that the coming to power of Milei will be “an impact” because “neither he nor anyone on his team believes in multilateralism as a tool to solve common challenges, nor in Europe nor in Latin America“.
For its part, the Portuguese MEP María Manuel Leitão Marquesof the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS) indicated that based on “the rhetoric in the campaign of Milei“both sides should be “very concerned”, since “not only the treaty with the EU, but the EU alliance itself Mercosur has been questioned.”
In 2021, after giving a conference in Uruguay, Milei expressed in an interview with Busqueda that, if he had power, he would “eliminate” the Mercosur. The economist specified on that occasion that, far from the Uruguayan position of asking for “flexibility” within the economic bloc, he believes that it should be suppressed.
In the middle of the year, the economist Diana Mondinofuture chancellor of the incoming Argentine government, was less categorical on the matter when he assured that “the Mercosur has to be revitalized”, since “neither the world nor the countries of the Mercosur have the same needs or opportunities as when the Mercosur“.
Lacalle Pou is pessimistic about a Mercosur – European Union agreement
On the other hand, the president Luis Lacalle Pou expressed to DNews in August that he was not “very optimistic” about the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two regional blocs.
“We have some opening issues of the agreement that we do not share in principle,” the head of state said on that occasion, adding that “25 years of negotiating does not seem logical in modern times.”
Source: Ambito
