The Uruguayan Foreign Ministry announced that it is promoting the development of National Border Plans (PNF) in order to revalue this territorial zone of social transit, both with Argentina and Brazil, through the coordination of actions between the competent agencies at the border.
The Director of Border, Limit and Maritime Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Federico Perazza, stated that it is necessary to give a response to the border area since, due to the health emergency, it is experiencing a complex situation with economic and informality problems, according to the communication.
«Perhaps one of the issues that requires the most analysis and interaction is the operation of border crossings. Not necessarily all the agencies that have to be at the border crossings are there, There are problems with technology, infrastructure, data crossing", he pointed.
The official added that it is necessary to promote "physical integration towards the border" and to find mechanisms to finance infrastructure works that operate at the same speed on both the Argentine and Brazilian sides of the border.
Due to the Covid-19 health emergency, Uruguay has kept its borders closed, with certain exceptions for entry. However, in the dry border zone with Brazil there are many cities that lead a binational life, where their citizens live on one side and work on the other and movement between nations has no restrictions.
This is the case of the Uruguayan city of Rivera (north) and the Brazilian city of Santana do Livramento, an area where the government has had the greatest problems in controlling the spread of the pandemic, despite attempts to work together between the two countries to agree on common strategies.
«One of the greatest weaknesses of our border integration policy has been the absence of a monitoring mechanism., to follow up on actions that we agreed on at the border," said Federico Perazza.
The idea behind this National Border Plan is that all organisations and institutions can express their concerns, present concrete actions and thus, in the future, move towards a draft law.
"What we want to establish first is a sincere discussion between the agencies that manage borders, which will lay the foundations for a future law," the official clarified.
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