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Chile's President Sebastian Pinera delivers a speech during the closing ceremony of the CELAC-EU summit in Santiago/AFP

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LatAm, Europe back free trade, eye strategic alliance

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, who has taken some protectionist measures, said that the EU-Mercosur negotiations, launched in 2004, must restart on a “new basis” that can clear the way for a deal.

“The negotiations with the EU cannot be based on decisions made in 2004. We need new premises, first among all Mercosur members, not just between Brazil and Argentina,” she said after a bilateral session with Rousseff.

Kirchner suggested establishing an ad hoc Mercosur panel to come up with new proposals and make a new offer to the EU later this year.

Meanwhile, a Venezuelan minister said here that President Hugo Chavez has beaten a severe respiratory infection that occurred after his latest cancer surgery in Cuba.

“The respiratory infection has been overcome, although there still is some degree of breathing difficulty that is being treated appropriately,” Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas said on the sidelines of a EU-CELAC summit.

Chavez, who had surgery on December 12, has not been seen in public since he left Caracas for surgery at a hospital in Cuba.

Monday, the 33 CELAC leaders will hold their own summit here, with Cuba taking over chairmanship from Chile for one year. They are hoping to overcome ideological and economic differences to foster greater regional integration.

The meeting will seal Cuba’s full regional reintegration and mark a major diplomatic coup for 81-year-old President Raul Castro. Cuba, the only non-democratic Communist-ruled country in the Americas, has been under a US economic embargo since 1962.

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