Lula leaves presidency of Mercosur and recognizes that he failed to reach consensus

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) left the rotating presidency of Mercosur this Thursday (7) without being able to close the much-desired trade agreement with the European Union and recognized that the bloc’s progress does not have consensus among member countries.

Lula handed over command of the bloc to the Paraguayan president, Santiago Peña, stating that “there is no problem” that the representatives of each country are changed every four years and that they have different views on the conduct of foreign trade relations.

“There is one more to the right, one more to the left, one more in favor, one more against. One day we will find the common denominator”, said Lula in a speech at the Mercosur Summit, which ended in Rio de Janeiro.

The PT member said he had “very high” expectations for Peña’s presidency in the bloc to continue negotiations with the Europeans, the integration of Latin American countries and relations with Africa. “You know that I am a fanatic about the relationship with Africa, especially because I think that Brazil has a historical debt with Africa and we have to pay it by transferring technology”, stated the Brazilian president.

On the other hand, Peña took the opposite path and said that he intends to look more inside the bloc rather than paying so much attention to the outside. The Paraguayan president preached greater development of trade relations between Latin countries and that they are “in the best region in the world and with the greatest potential” – at this point converging with Lula on the objective of greater regional integration.

“I want to encourage myself to dream that we can once again focus on these major challenges as a region. In Guarani there is a phrase that says ‘ya ovalema’, which is enough, and I don’t mean that in the sense that we don’t want to move forward with the European Union. We want to move forward, but I think we just need to stop looking outside and start looking more inside,” she said.

On the other hand, Peña also expressed that a problem that a neighboring country may have – citing Argentina, which will be presided over by the libertarian Javier Milei as of Sunday (10) – is not just restricted to that country, but is a “problem for everyone”.

“There is no Mercosur where only a few perform well and economic cycles do not affect it differently. The current problems that sister Argentina may have are not Argentina’s problems, they are the problems of all Mercosur countries,” she concluded.

In addition to Paraguay, which intends to strengthen relations between countries on the continent, Uruguay is also no longer a great supporter of Mercosur. President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou has already expressed his favor several times in closing bilateral agreements outside the bloc, contrary to Lula’s expectations.