Pending a new disbursement, Alberto Fernández accused the IMF again

In the G20, in Rome and in the G7, in Germany. Even at the United Nations headquarters in New York or at Celac, in Buenos Aires. For more than two years, Alberto Fernández has insisted on every international forum he visits to request a “new international financial architecture” and against the supplements paid by emerging and indebted countries like Argentina. The XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government in Santo Domingo was no exception.

In the convention center where the meeting took place, in the capital of the Dominican Republic, just 150 meters from the Caribbean Sea, Fernández it renewed its call to the IMF to eliminate surcharges and this time he hasn’t deprived himself – as a good part of his coalition does – of question the credit bureau in harsh terms.

“The tariffs and surcharges that the International Monetary Fund imposes on indebted countries they are abusive. That reality collides with that international financial architecture, which I questioned earlier,” said the president, who spoke in third place, after the Ecuadorian Guillermo Lasso, with whom he has just starred in a high-profile diplomatic exchange voltage.

The President mentioned the recent shocks in Silicon Valley’s financial system; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; and in Switzerland. “The central world that passively allows these bubbles to inflate, runs to the aid of the “system” before the explosion so that the domino effect that we already experienced fifteen years ago does not reoccur (…) The current financial system no longer needs to be helped. We have to change it drastically,” he said in the 6-page speech where she worked with Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.

The Government wanted to include a claim on the need for a new financial architecture in the final document of the speech. It was not possible. He collided with the dynamics of a body that defines by consensus rather than by majority.

The final document which was discussed for months and approved by the bloc’s 19 heads of state and government did not mention Russia or Ukraine on any of its 11 pages, much less the invasion.

In the corridors of the Hotel El Embajador where most of the international leaders were staying, they pointed this out Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua they definitely blocked that possibility. The pressure from Spain and Portugal has so far not been enough to impose their vision in the first face-to-face summit after the pandemic. Fernández referred in his speech, without euphemisms, to the “Russian invasion” of Ukraine.

For the President of the Spanish Government Pedro Sanchez which landed in Santo Domingo a few minutes after the President and a day after King Felipe VI, represented a setback. The head of the Spanish government – who met Fernández and the representative of the European Union on Saturday morning Joseph Borrel– is one of the most adamant European leaders when it comes to condemning Russia’s responsibility for the first war on the old continent in 70 years.

At the Argentine foreign ministry they recognize that the absences of the Brazilian Lula, who had to travel to China (but was ultimately suspended for pneumonia) and of the Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador “devalued” the top management. Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega also hit the foul, like the controversial Salvadoran executive Nayib Bukele. Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro accused a case of covid-19 at the last moment..

The final document, somewhat recycled for Argentine officials, is a kind of declaration of good intentions to ensure the region’s sustainable development after the pandemic. One of the axes of the document and of the entire meeting revolved around actions to mitigate climate change. In his speech, the President insisted on the need for urgent action and gave as an example the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of the drought that Argentina is experiencing.

Argentina, on the other hand, achieved a partial diplomatic victory: it managed to get the leaders of the summit to issue an a special communication on the Malvinas in which they urge the parties to return to the negotiating table. “It was our greatest achievement”, they were honest in the national delegation. It is not the first time that the Summit has spoken out on the matter. The President thanked him in his presentation.

The relationship with the Ecuadorian Lasso remained cold and distant, according to the description of the delegation. Chilean Gabriel Boric, on the other hand, invited Fernández to the trans-Andean country to celebrate the 205th anniversary of the battle of Maipú.