On Tuesday (16.07.2019) Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie inaugurated the Plenary of Foreign Ministers of the 54th Mercosur Summit, gathered at the Common Market Council, which is taking place at the historic Belgrano Station in the city of Santa Fe. There he advocated for Mercosur to "deepen" its "political agenda, which is associated with this greater role in economic-commercial matters," based on the agreement reached with the European Union.
This agreement, said the Argentine Foreign Minister, is "a turning point for the internal and external agenda." of the bloc formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The Plenary will be attended by Foreign Ministers Ernesto Fraga Araujo, Luis Alberto Castiglioni and Rodolfo Nin Novoa.
For his part, the Secretary of International Economic Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Horacio Reyser, highlighted the important achievements that open up opportunities and new challenges for MERCOSUR that have been reached during the Argentine presidency in joint work with partners. In the report prepared by the PPT of Argentina, Reyser pointed out:
LThe PPTA assumed its responsibility as the Presidency of MERCOSUR with a specific objective: to revitalize MERCOSUR. To this end, we proposed three lines of work to the partners:
• reform and strengthen the institutional structure of MERCOSUR;
• deepen the economic and trade agenda; and
• specify our external negotiation agenda with specific agreements.
In the first instance, after almost twenty years of negotiation, we achieved a agreement in principle between MERCOSUR and the European Union, which sets out the terms of the Strategic Partnership Agreement between our bloc and the EU with regard to access to markets for goods, services and public procurement and the different chapters that will make up the final agreement. This is a transcendental milestone in the international insertion of MERCOSUR, clearly a before and after for our bloc. It is a strategic advance to insert our economies into the largest market in the world, improve our production standards and generate quality employment in the region. We believe that this agreement will be one of the engines of growth for our countries in the coming years.
The external agenda also remained very active with Canada, Korea, EFTA, Singapore and Vietnam. In all these cases we are moving rapidly to conclude new agreements, and I believe that the success achieved with the European Union will give us the momentum we need to be able to do so quickly.
Beyond the external front, significant progress has also been made during this semester on the internal agenda of MERCOSUR. Thanks to the political will and negotiating efforts of all the Member States, we have achieved important achievements both for our integration process and, particularly, for our citizens. Among the main results I can mention the following:
• The Agreement for the Elimination of Roaming Charges was signed International to the End User of MERCOSUR, which will allow us to reduce communication costs and is a concrete element to make life easier for our citizens, who increasingly travel between our countries and need to be connected.
• The Ad Hoc Group to Examine the Consistency and Dispersion of the Common External Tariff has begun its work in order to modify the current AEC so that our economies become more productive and competitive on the international stage. This is a vital task for the bloc, because the AEC is one of our main constituent instruments. And it is a historic occasion, because it is the first time since the AEC was established 25 years ago that we have undertaken the task of carrying out a comprehensive review of it.
• An understanding was reached with FONPLATA to sign a Trusteeship Agreement that seeks to improve the management of the financial resources of our Structural Convergence Fund - the FOCEM - which is a tool that has generated so many good results in its more than ten years of existence. I would like to remind you that the Fund has financed more than fifty projects in our countries, so any measure we take to strengthen it will have a very positive impact on our economies.
• The Regulatory Framework for a MERCOSUR Budget was approved, which includes the current budgets of the different bodies of the bloc that require financing and the special funds –with the exception of the MERCOSUR Parliament and the FOCEM-. This is a necessary and long-delayed improvement for the orderly and efficient functioning of the structure of the bloc, which we were finally able to achieve in this semester with the joint work of all countries. We must always remember that the efficient administration of public affairs is a duty to our citizens and this Framework that we are approving goes exactly in that direction.
• The current institutional structure of MERCOSUR technical and consultative forums was also rationalized., through the elimination of bodies that were inactive or had fulfilled the objective for which they had been created. In the same way, some forums that had overlapping thematic competences were merged in order to streamline the functioning of the MERCOSUR bodies and eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic instances.
When we assumed the Presidency of Mercosur we proposed to work on three objectives: reform and strengthen the institutional structure; deepen the economic and commercial agenda; close negotiations with other countries/blocs. We made progress in all of them. I open thread ? pic.twitter.com/c3xAx1WkCq
— Horacio Reyser (@HoracioReyser) July 16, 2019
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