At a summit of heads of state, Bolsonaro said, “Brazil is in a hurry” to see changes in the bloc’s rules.
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, in a virtual event, assumed this Thursday (8) the command pro-tempore of Mercosur.
During his presidency, which will last until December 2021, Brazil will seek to continue the process of modernization of MERCOSUR, characterized by the resumption of the economic-commercial vocation, intensification of the negotiation of external trade agreements, strengthening of the economic-commercial normative framework, and continuity efforts to rationalize the bloc’s operation, reducing costs and bureaucracy.
President Bolsonaro wants MERCOSUR to maintain its full commitment to democratic values and, in the intra- and extra-bloc dimension, to adopt a pragmatic approach to generate concrete results for the citizens.
Brazil promises to make a “double” with Uruguay to liberalize the customs union by allowing bilateral agreements with countries outside the bloc.
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Like Uruguay, Brazil advocates a radical reduction in the CET, while Argentina prefers a gradual drop in the rate, avoiding applying it to the industrial sector, at least until January. Bolsonaro and Lacalle defend that the bloc should stop being ideological.
The President said that he wants to use his presidency for Mercosur to promote the freedom and prosperity of local peoples.
“Brazil is in a hurry, we are thirsty for results. We need to launch new negotiations, resolve the pending ones, reduce tariffs. We want an economy that is more airy and integrated into the world,” he says.
“The persistence of deadlocks and the use of the consensus rule as a veto instrument and the attachment to archaic visions with a defensive bias will only serve to create skepticism and doubts about the bloc’s potential. Brazil will not stop in efforts to modernize its economy and we want our integration partners to be partners in this journey.”
The president of Brazil also stated that, with the advance of mass vaccination of the population, he hopes to be able to receive the other leaders of the continent in person at the next Summit, which takes place at the end of the year.
