Brazil Doesn’t See Eye to Eye with Mercosur Junior Members

Mercosur General Carlos Alvarez, Mercosur's standing secretary, admitted it was difficult for the South American trade group to unify positions because "some countries see the global crisis as something distant."

Nevertheless "I will continue to insist on the need to meet and discuss a joint position" before the G-20 summit scheduled for April 1 and 2 in London, said Alvarez during a speech in Buenos Aires to the Ideas Foundation, the brain child of Spanish President José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

"Mercosur as a block will not be present in London but Argentina and Brazil will, so we expect them to reflect a joint position from the block, if we can reach a consensus."

"It so happens not all countries share the perception of the crisis, on one side we have Brazil and Argentina, but the rest don't feel the same way, some are kind of oblivious," added Alvarez.

The former Argentine vice-president said that the current crisis "is not only a confrontation between State and the market," but rather a "civilizing" crisis and requires a completely different cosmos-vision," adding that "we must take advantage of the crisis to rethink a new society."

Mercosur standing secretary general said that Latin America has been the region of the world which most suffered since the advent of the "neo-liberal model" under former US President Ronald Reagan, "but we are now the lab for the search of answers to neo-liberalism."

Further on he pointed out that with the exception of "Rodrí­guez Zapatero in Spain it's most hard to identify new ideas among European progressive leaders" and went on to enumerate the defeat of the left in Italy and the "incredible concentration of power" managed by conservative Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister.

Another speaker at the Buenos Aires conference was Jesús Caldera, Spanish former Labour and Social Services minister Jesus Caldera who recalled that not so long ago "from the other side of the Atlantic (US) we were urged to throw overboard the "social ballast" of the European model so we could better compete."

However "with the neo-liberal, neo-conservative model the number of poor people in the world and industrial countries has soared and is higher in percentage than fifteen years ago," he emphasized.

Mercopress

Tags:

You May Also Like

Brazil: Of Best-Sellers and Better Reads

The crisis of literature is not only Brazilian. It is felt on the world ...

Bumpy Road

By Brazzil Magazine In the United States, real per capita income grew at a ...

Imagine

A coalition of Brazilian unions claimed that the Porto Alegre forum was merely concerned ...

GM Soy in Brazil Will Kill the Amazon and Boost Global Warming by 50%

As genetically modified soybeans take over vast tracts in Brazil and all over South ...

Soybean Is Spreading and Destroying Brazil’s Savannah

A survey by Brazil’s Institute of Socioeconomic Studies (INESC) contends that soybean production in ...

Uruguay Asks from Brazil a Bigger Role in the Mercosur

In his second visit to Brazil, the President of Uruguay, Tabaré Vasquez, said that ...

Brazil and US Sign Comprehensive Defense Cooperation Pact

Presenting it as an example of partnership and transparency for the Americas, Brazil and ...

tum-tum tum-tum

he’s a littlejesuschrist lying down like this doesn’t even look like a child the ...

Only a Federal Program Can End Brazil’s Big Fraud and Educational Shame

Whenever anyone asks for an explanation of the educational shame in one of the ...

Peru Leader Defends Strong South America in Brazil

In his speech, yesterday, at the opening of the South America – Arab Countries ...