RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Argentine government decided to cut off the transmission of the MERCOSUR event intended to broadcast the handover of the pro tempore presidency of the South American trade bloc.
It did so immediately after outgoing MERCOSUR president Alberto Fernández delivered his speech, leaving his peers unable to deliver their messages live. As the holder of the regional mandate, Argentina was the host and organizer of the diplomatic ceremony.
But only the words of the local dignitary were highlighted.
The other MERCOSUR presidents were notified of their invisibility just 10 minutes before the start of the protocol intended to make public the handover of power from Fernández to his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro.
As a result, the other foreign ministries were forced to urgently implement streaming mechanisms in order to broadcast the speeches at the summit. The governments of member countries were surprised by the bizarre way in which Argentina imposed the terms of the ceremony. “We had no room to work properly,” a member of the Brazilian diplomacy complained.
It is the host country which must provide the conditions for the broadcast to happen in due time and form. However, the speeches – scheduled to begin at 11 AM (local time) – took longer than expected, while the other leaders waited for the beginning.
Held at the Bicentennial Museum in Casa Rosada, Bolsonaro took the floor after Fernández, who in turn gave the floor to his Paraguayan counterpart, Mario Abdó Benítez. At the end, it was the turn of Uruguay’s Luis Lacalle Pou who spoke after announcing that his nation would seek new markets outside the bloc.
Then it was the turn of the presidents and representatives of associated states: Bolivia’s vice-president David Choquehuanca, Chile’s president Sebastián Piñera, Ecuador’s president Guillermo Lasso, Colombia’s vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Adriana Mejía Hernández, and Guyana’s president Irfaan Ali.
At the end of the brief presentations and according to the Argentine Foreign Ministry’s schedule, Alberto Fernández was to formally pass the pro tempore command of the regional bloc to Bolsonaro, a situation that was not conveyed either.
For the local government, the “closing of the meeting” had occurred much earlier, as the Argentine president finished his speech.
In his message – the only one to be officially broadcast – Fernández pointed out “no one is saved alone,” in reference to the more open-minded stances of the other members.
“It is through more and not less regional integration that we will be in better conditions to produce, trade, negotiate and compete,” Fernández stated and, although he did not make specific mention of the announcement of Luis Lacalle Pou’s government, he added: “Argentina once again reaffirms that no one is saved alone and that a MERCOSUR with a solidary heart is the flagship of its integration strategy.”
The irony: the organizers did not take into account that, as hosts, perhaps they should also broadcast the opinions of the other MERCOSUR members.
The other speeches
Upon taking office, Bolsonaro pointed out the possibility of “relaxing” Mercosur’s regulations to enable negotiations with new countries. “We must address the relaxation of negotiations with external countries,” he emphasized. “We cannot allow MERCOSUR to continue to be a synonym of inefficiency and wasted opportunities,” Bolsonaro declared while speaking virtually at the summit.
For his part, Lacalle Pou was in tune with the trade bloc’s other major partner. “We are going to respect MERCOSUR’s current legal order and, under the protection of that legal order, yesterday our Foreign Minister together with the Minister of Economy, in what is a free trade zone, announced that Uruguay intends to negotiate with other countries and this does not mean violating or breaching the rule of consensus,” he said with respect to his administration’s announcement on Wednesday.
“The world is moving very fast, it is becoming commercially intertwined. The end of Covid-19 is going to trigger these negotiations. The world is moving forward and it’s not going to wait for us. Therefore, we want to tell you calmly that Uruguay is headed that way. Hopefully we will all be there together,” he stressed.
In turn, Paraguay’s president Mario Abdo Benítez advocated the maintenance of MERCOSUR’s “founding principles,” with a “coordinated” external relationship and, if possible, with more “dynamic” measures, during his speech at the Summit of the bloc’s presidents.
“With respect to external relations, we have to continue working in coordination and together, with a balanced perspective that takes into account the interests of all and listens to the member states,” the president said.
Finally, Abdo Benítez called for finding “ways that help” to continue working together, “in dialogue” between members and “with measures and decisions that may be more dynamic.”
Source: Infobae