Big business and two prominent opposition leaders welcomed Uruguay’s presidential hopeful Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou (National/White Party, centre-right NP) to the Alvear Hotel yesterday, an occasion at which the candidate declared that the Mercosur bloc should soften the customs union, an approach that’s been strongly rejected by the current Argentine and Brazilian governments.
“We’ll seek a waiver to end the inhibitions (preventing us from signing) bilateral free trade agreements,” Lacalle Pou said before more than 200 business representatives and figureheads.
“It wouldn’t contradict the Treaty of Asunción, since the impossibility of issuing bilateral agreements was established in a 2002 clause that can be disparaged. There is room to do so according the World Trade Organization,” the Uruguayan candidate told journalists later.
Lacalle Pou was the main speaker at an event hosted by the Inter-American Council of Commerce and Production (CICyP), an association presided over by the head of Corporación América, Eduardo Eurnekian, who was abroad yesterday. Alberto Grimoldi hosted in his stead.
Several well-known business tycoons attended the event, including Adrián Werthein, Carlos Bulgheroni, Banco Macro CEO Jorge Brito — who shared a table with opposition leader Sergio Massa — Industrial Union head Héctor Méndez, Buenos Aires Stock Market leader Adelmo Gabbi and bankers Eduardo Escassany and Guillermo Stanley.
Among the Uruguayans who arrived in BA City with Lacalle Pou was the “future” Economy Minister Azucena Arbeleche and vice-presidential candidate Jorge “Guapo” Larrañaga.
Former president Luis Lacalle Herrera’s son and NP founding leader Luis Alberto Herrera’s great-grandson, Lacalle Pou appears to be a serious threat to the ruling Broad Front (Frente Amplio). With centre-left leaning candidate Tabaré Vázquez, 74, likely to win the first round of the country’s presidential elections on October 25, Lacalle Pou, a 41-year-old centre-right representative who plays the zero-confrontation-non-ideological card, is likely to go head-to-head with the former president.
Even though Lacalle Pou received an effusive hug from Massa and talked warmly to UNEN Senator and presidential candidate Ernesto Sanz, he tried to avoid laying down any markers that would have any impact on Argentine politics. Regarding the plea for military help, made by Tabaré Vázquez to US President George W. Bush at the peak of the conflict over the Botnia pulp mill plant in 2007, the opposition candidate only responded: “We didn’t agree with Vázquez on that point.”
Liberalizing Mercosur
With regard the liberalization of the Mercosur for bilateral agreements, also clamoured for by Brazil’s main opposition candidates, Marina Silva and Aécio Neves, Dilma Rousseff’s government sent a clear message last week, when Trade Minister Mauro Borges considered that opening the country to more foreign trade would be a “disaster for Brazilian industry” and lead to the “mexicanization” of the economy. The same line is held by Argentine government, but an electoral victory for Silva or Neves would mean the end of Mercosur as it is known today.
Lacalle Pou exposed a different stance on the current incarnation of the Mercosur when he criticized the Uruguayan government for having supported sanctions against Paraguay when Fernando Lugo was ousted from the presidency by the so-called “alternative coup d’état.”
“It happened according the Paraguayan Constitution,” stressed the Uruguayan candidate.
For his part, Sergio Massa told the assembled journalists that inflation is his main concern: “As it is said in other countries, it’s inflation, stupid!”
“Many decisions must be taken as a whole (to solve the problem) — it’s not a matter of one measure,” he pointed.
The Renewal Front candidate also played along to the music of “zero-confrontation.”
“I go along the central path, between the government and (BA City mayor and presidential candidate) Mauricio Macri. I am where most of people are,” he declared.
Massa also commented on Argentina’s media law, which he considered “out of date”, “ineffective” and declared had “created to tackle an enemy.”
“We must incorporate the convergence of telephony, cable and internet services,” he said. “The problem is not Clarín. There is a principle in Argentina that laws are approved to take on the enemy, and that is wrong.”
Sebastián Lacunza
Fonte: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/171201/lacalle-pou-mercosur-should-not-operate-as-customs-union
