Argentina and Brazil advance in challenge to “reactivate” Unasur

Authorities from Argentina and Brazil discussed in a meeting in Buenos Aires the “challenges to reactivate” the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), an organization to which both countries have just returned, as “determining strategic space” of the region in the international arena.

As reported this Tuesday by the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, Gisela Padovan, held a meeting with the Chief of Staff of the Argentine Foreign Ministry, Luciana Tito, to advance coordination binational policy since the recent announcement by presidents Alberto Fernández and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that their countries return to Unasur.

Between 2018 and 2020, various Latin American states, including Argentina and Brazil, then governed by presidents aligned more to the right, decided to leave the bloc, founded in 2008, by assuring that it was ideologized, so Unasur, in which only Guyana, Suriname, Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru remained, plunged into decadence.

At the meeting in Buenos Aires, Padovan formally delivered the Letter of Ratification of the Constitutive Treaty of Unasur promulgated last week by Lula, in which the Brazilian president, who took power last January, officially announced the country’s return to the bloc. after his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), decided to leave in 2019.

At the same time, Argentina also made its return to the organization official after the government of the liberal Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) chose to leave it in 2019.

Luciana Tito thanked the forwarding of the letter and considered that the return of Argentina and Brazil to Unasur reflects the “priority consideration that both governments give to the relationship with the region and ratifies the commitment to consolidate the integration of South America through a process of collective construction and promotion of dialogue”.

At the meeting, which also discussed issues on the bilateral agenda, they discussed “operational matters” linked to the establishment of a new headquarters for the organization, and the agenda of links with other regions of the Global South, especially in bi-regional initiatives with Arab and African countries.

In addition, the main axes of cooperation in areas such as health, defense, cross-border traffic and integration of productive chains and infrastructure were discussed, and the advantages and achievements offered by the IIRSA initiative (Integration of the South American Regional Infrastructure) were discussed, “as a privileged forum for connectivity and transportbetween both countries.

Source: EFE