Hear
Everything seemed defined on Thursday morning, when the Argentine embassy in Italy and the Argentine government itself Giorgia Meloni They received official apologies. President Javier Milei would decline the invitation of the Italian Prime Minister and would not be at the G-7 meeting, on Thursday the 13th, in the paradisiacal landscape of Borgo Egnazia, and with no less than world leaders such as Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholzhe Pope Francisco and his neighbor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as participants and guests.
But everything changed. So much so that, in the afternoon, the Government itself collected its own kite and unofficially announced Milei’s presence at the summit.
What happened? According to her, she was able to know THE NATION, the first line of the Foreign Ministry, headed by career diplomats such as the vice chancellor Leopoldo Sahoresthe Secretary of International Economic Relations, Marcelo Cimaand the undersecretary for Latin America, Mariano Vergaramore diplomatic representatives who respond to Pro insisted in private conversations about the importance of the head of state’s presence at the summit. “I couldn’t not be in that place. Luckily we were heard,” Two of the diplomatic interlocutors that the Casa Rosada had in those hours of uncertainty agreed with a tone of relief.
In the Macrismo, from whose ranks several of the current Foreign Ministry officials came, they recognized that the President’s original decision “surprised everyone”, since “he had been invited to the G-7 a long time ago, with Meloni he feels comfortable and is an important opportunity for Argentina.” In any case, they conceded that dividing the trip into two sections, with a five-day stay in Buenos Aires, “seems logical, because “It was too long a trip at this time in the country,” according to a high-ranking former official of the Cambiemos government.
“We are like that,” they ironically said around the President as a justification, when the press asked for details about the changing and still undefined official agenda.
Now that the short-term outlook has been clarified – Milei will travel to the G-7, return to the country and on the 20th he will return to Europe to receive awards in Spain and Germany – the Government assures that the presidential zigzag and his preference for meetings with executives of technology companies over heads of state They are “understood” beyond our borders. “He is a clearly disruptive President, with a different communication mechanism. More like [Carlos] Menem that [Raúl] Alfonsín”, is justified by a high diplomatic source from the Foreign Ministry that heads Diana Mondino.
“Diplomacy has quite stable rules and through forms you always get to the bottom. Will Milei be able to change that trend? “We don’t know,” asked another source from the foreign relations area, somewhat perplexed by Milei’s international strategy, which in addition to canceling his time in France left Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky without his presence, organizer of the Peace Summit in Lucerne, Switzerland, next weekend.
While his legislative representatives analyze how to avoid another defeat like Monday’s in Congress, he orders the distribution of public works to the governors through the Chief of Staff and defends the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, Milei and her circle more nearby have already begun to think about their participation in the G-7.
In addition to the expected exchanges with his American counterpart Biden – from whom he has not yet received a formal invitation to receive him at the White House -, the Frenchman Macron (whom Milei has just canceled the meeting scheduled for the 19th) and Pope Francis, Milei will be in the same area as the president of Brazil, with whom he has had a “no relationship” since the beginning of his mandate, after the accusations of “communist” and “corrupt” that Milei launched at him during the electoral campaign that took him to the Casa Rosada, while Lula did not hide his preference for Sergio Massa in the Argentine contest.
Will there be a talk alone between Milei and Lula? In both chancelleries they are cautious. “There is no need to pressure or rush the times. If it has to happen, it will happen,” says a Brazilian diplomatic source to THE NATION. And he adds that, beyond the coldness between both presidents, “the bilateral bond flows without problems.” At the San Martín Palace they aim more towards mid-July, when Milei – if everything goes according to plan – arrives in Asunción for his first meeting of Mercosur presidents.
Before that, Milei will be in Buenos Aires between June 15 and 20, Flag Day included. I would travel for the second time on the 20th at night to Madrid, to be in Spain on the 21st and receive the prize awarded by the Juan de Mariana Institute for its “exemplary defense of the ideas of freedom.” Others awarded in previous years by the same entity, a think thank you of liberal orientation, were the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa; his Spanish counterpart Antonio Escohotado and Alberto Benegas Lynch (h.), one of the liberal thinkers most praised by the President.
On his previous trip to Spain, Milei participated in an electoral campaign event for the far-right group Vox, and he appeared with his leader, Santiago Abascal. His criticism of Begoña Sánchez, the wife of the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, led to a diplomatic crisis that ended with the Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires, María Jesús Alonso, back in Madrid.
From the Spanish capital, Milei will arrive in Germany for two days, where he will have two central appointments: on the 22nd, in Hamburg, he will receive the Friedrich von Hayek Prize and on the 23rd he will be received with military honors by the German Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who will open the German government headquarters on Sunday for the occasion. Of social democratic affiliation, but a fan of fiscal balance, Scholz would finally be the only president with whom Milei would meet in a bilateral meeting on the second leg of their European tour.
