BUENOS AIRES.- He Argentine President, Javier Milei, will not go to the Mercosur summit On July 8 in Asunción, where he was to meet his Brazilian counterpart and ideological nemesis Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvawhile considering meeting with the former president Jair Bolsonaro over the weekend, his spokesman said Monday.
“The president, due to agenda issues, will not go to the summit Mercosur “as planned,” said presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni at a press conference, after having announced days earlier that he would attend.
Foreign Minister Diana Mondino will represent the “libertarian liberal” leader, as he defines himself, at the semi-annual meeting of presidents of the trade bloc composed of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Adorni’s announcement came after Friday’s Milei will call Lula a “leftist” with an “inflamed ego” and refused to apologize as he had requested for statements made before assuming the presidency in December, in which the Argentine leader accused Lula of being a “wild leftist”, a “communist” and “corrupt”.
In response to press speculation that Milei is thus avoiding a face-to-face meeting with Lula in Paraguay, Adorni responded that the president “I would never stop having an activity because of my own words.”
Milei will travel to Brazil on Saturday and return on Sunday (one day before the summit in Paraguay) to an event that Adorni did not specify and in which “it is not confirmed whether or not he will meet with Bolsonaro.”
The ex-president Bolsonaro (2019-2022), are looking for mercyis currently the target of several investigations for the alleged falsification of Covid-19 vaccine certificates and for alleged participation in an attempted coup d’état to prevent his political rival, Lula, from taking office in January 2023.
Lula did not attend Milei’s inauguration last December, to which Bolsonaro was invited instead.
The Brazilian president declared last week that Argentina “is a very important country for Brazil, and Brazil is very important for Argentina” and that “it is not a president of the Republic who is going to create discord between Brazil and Argentina.”
The Southern Common Market (Mercosur) was created in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Full members are also Venezuela, whose entry was approved in 2006 but has been suspended since 2017 due to “a breach of democratic order”, and Bolivia, whose parliament has yet to approve the accession protocol.
Source: With information from AFP
