President Alberto Fernández will embark on his second international trip as head of state on Wednesday, where he will visit Italy, Germany, Spain, and France.
Highest on the agenda will be courting support from the international leaders for debt renegotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Together, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany make up over 10 percent of the IMF voting bloc— a critical mass for the Fernández administration to win over as they try to prevent default.
According to the AFP news agency, the country’s debt load currently stands at around US$335 billion, or 93 percent of GDP. Of that, US$44 billion is owed to the IMF, with talks on delaying repayment set to begin soon.
The Peronist leader will begin his trip at the Vatican, where he will meet with fellow countryman Pope Francis this Friday at the Holy See's Library of the Apostolic Palace.
Afterwards, Fernández will meet with José Graziano da Silva, the general director of United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation. The following Monday, he is also expected to have a bilateral meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, before heading to Berlin for one day to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Fernández will then travel to Spain on Tuesday, where he will meet with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and then France on Thursday, where he will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Fernández recently returned from Israel, his first international trip, for an international forum on Holocaust Remembrance. While in Jerusalem, he had bilateral meetings with three of Israel’s most significant figures: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, and opposition leader Benny Gantz.
—TIMES/PERFIL/NA
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