Argentina presides over a new Summit of Foreign Ministers of Celac

The Foreign Minister of Argentina, Santiago Cafiero, in a file photograph (EFE / Joédson Alves)

The city of Buenos Aires will host the XXII Summit of Foreign Ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) this January 6 and 7, when the candidacy of Argentina to exercise the pro tempore presidency during 2022 will be discussed, as reported by this Wednesday the Argentine Foreign Ministry.

The foreign ministers will arrive in Argentina on Thursday and that same night they will participate in an event at the Kirchner Cultural Center, which will be led by the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, in his capacity as host, and will be accompanied by the foreign minister of the South American country, Santiago Cafiero. .

On Friday there will be a plenary meeting at the Palacio San Martín – headquarters of the Argentine Foreign Ministry – and high-level bilateral meetings between the countries.

As reported to EFE Foreign Ministry spokespersons, the agenda to be discussed on Friday is to define which country will occupy the pro tempore presidency of Celac during 2022 and Argentina’s candidacy is the only one that has remained in force so far.

At the VI Summit of Heads of State and Government of Celac, last September, it was planned to elect the new president pro tempore, a position that Mexico has held since January 2020, and where Argentina was also a candidate, but consensus was not achieved.

Archive photograph of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard (Photo: EFE)

It is possible that at noon on Friday Cafiero and his Mexican counterpart, Marcelo Ebrard, will hold a press conference to publicly make the result of the new pro tempore presidency official, the spokesmen added.

Celac is an intergovernmental mechanism for dialogue and political agreement that was created in 2010, recalls the Argentine Foreign Ministry, which arises “with the commitment to advance in the gradual process of integration of the region, striking a wise balance between unity and diversity. political, economic, social and cultural of the more than 600 million inhabitants of Latin America and the Caribbean ”.

Celac was launched in December 2011 and for Argentina “it constitutes the central voice of the region on issues of consensus as it is the only interlocutor that can promote and project Latin America and the Caribbean in the discussion of major global issues, with the objective of seeking a better insertion of the region in the international arena ”.

Celac’s membership includes the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and is made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Commonwealth of Dominica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.

As detailed by the Foreign Ministry spokespersons, until this Wednesday 30 countries have confirmed their presence at the meeting in Buenos Aires -with 21 foreign ministers, a vice-chancellor and 8 heads of delegation-, while Brazil suspended their participation in the activities of the Celac in 2020.

(With information from EFE)

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