Argentina reinforces desire to deepen ties with ‘natural partner’ EU

Foreign Minister Diana Mondino has told the European Union’s top diplomat that she wants to deepen Argentina’s “strategic relationship” with its “natural partner.”

Mondino, 65, made the remarks during a high-level meeting in Brussels on Monday with EU diplomat Josep Borrell, according to sources from the delegation.

Borrel, the EU’S High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, shared a working lunch with Mondino that focused on Argentina’s interest in “deepening the strategic relationship with the EU and its member countries,” said the sources.

According to Argentine diplomatic sources, at the meeting Mondino assured Borrell that Buenos Aires considers the EU to be its “natural partner.”

This view, the sources observed, is based on “shared values and visions of democratic principles, the multilateral system and a rules-based international order.”

Mondino also met with the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, and NATO’S Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs,

German diplomat Boris Ruge, while in Brussels.

Last month, President Javier Milei’s government confirmed that it wanted to become a “global partner” of the transatlantic military alliance – a fact Mondino reiterated on Tuesday.

NATO currently has a select group of nine countries that are considered to be global partners. Among Latin American nations, only Colombia (in 2018) has achieved this status.

Mondino is returning from her latest overseas tour, which began with a visit to China. Mondino was in Paris last week, where she attended a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and closed her tour on Tuesday with a visit to Portugal. However,

the foreign minister’s trip was not without controversy.

During an interview with the Clarín newspaper while in France, as she took questions about China’s deep space station in the south of Argentina, Mondino made the extraordinary claim that “all the Chinese are the same.”

She suggested that Argentine officials had been unable to tell if there were military officers at the Espacio Profundo CLTC-CONAE-NEUQUEN Station as they were unable to distinguish between civilians and soldiers.