MERCOSUR Far from Expectations, Uruguay FM
Prensa Latina, Cuba
MERCOSUR Far from Expectations, Uruguay FM
20 November 2008
Montevideo/MERCOSUR "is barely surviving or far from the expectations for which it was created," said Uruguayan Foreign Minister, Gonzalo Fernandez, in declarations today to the weekly magazine Busqueda.
"We believe in the region and think that our neighbors are very important, but it will show real hypocrisy if we don’t recognize that MERCOSUR has problems," added.
Fernandez also expressed his doubts about the possibilities of the Common Market of the South of generating a communitarian and associative system like the European Union.
However, he ratified the will of the Uruguayan government of continuing to integrate the block in an open regionalism.
Montevideo has accepted the MERCOSUR resolution of not admitting their members to sign bilateral agreements of free trades with other nations or blocks.
The government of Tabare Vazquez tried to sign a free trade agreement with the United States, but the attempt didn’t succeed after being criticized by sectors of the Frente Amplio governing party and the other members of the group (Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay).
Along with Paraguay, Uruguay also lamented that the negotiations inside MERCOSUR happen without taking into consideration the differences in each country’s economies.
