Martín Guzmán was with the Pope: a meeting for …

The Minister of the Economy, Martín Guzmán, met 45 minutes with Pope Francis at the Vatican as part of his visit to Rome, before meeting his Italian counterpart Daniele Franco. Guzmán is on tour in Europe to obtain support for debt restructuring with the IMF.

Guzman met alone this Wednesday with the Pope. The meeting took place in the private library on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace, Telam informed Vatican sources.

During the meeting, the two analyzed the debt situation Argentina faces with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and with the Paris Club. This is not a foreign issue for Francisco, who has made strong demands that international organizations move forward with “significant debt reduction” for the poorest countries.

Guzmán arrived in Rome on Tuesday evening accompanied by the IMF director for Argentina and the Southern Cone, Sergio Chodos, and the chief of staff of the Ministry of the Economy, Melina Mallamace. He arrived from Berlin, before his tour, which after crossing the Italian capital will continue to Madrid and Paris.

Guzmán’s agenda in Rome began at 9 a.m. (4 in Argentina) with a meeting with the president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PACS), the Italian economist Stefano Zamagni, in which also participated the Argentine bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo., Chancellor of the institution.

The meeting with the Pope, considered by Vatican sources as an “important gesture” of the Holy See to hear from Guzmán the Argentinian position on the debtIt was in the Casina Pio IV, in the Vatican gardens. It is the same building in which the minister exhibited on February 5, 2020 with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, at an event in which the Pope also participated.

One of the ordinary members of PACS, appointed last June by Francisco, is the current Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank and an important figure on the political map of the Old Continent.

In another gesture from the Vatican towards Guzmán, the minister and his entourage were able to visit the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s masterpiece in which the conclave that elected Francis as Pope was held, despite the fact that the Vatican Museums are closed to the public. Until May 3.

Guzman’s other activities in Rome

After the meetings with Zamagni and Francisco, Guzmán led a meeting at the Argentine Embassy in Italy with Italian companies based in our country, organized by Ambassador Roberto Carlés.

At the meeting, with Carlés and Guzmán at the head of the table, leading companies such as ENEL, Eni, Ghella, Leonardo, Ferrovie dello Stato and Sace, among others, participated.

The visit of the head of the Palace of Finance to Italy takes place as part of his tour of the European continent, where he has held and will develop meetings with the Ministers of Economy and Finance of Germany, Italy, d Spain and France, to discuss the renegotiation of the Argentine program with the IMF and the debt with the Paris Club, among other points of common interest.

Argentina will have to negotiate with the IMF to reach a new debt financing program of 45 billion US dollars contracted under the government of Mauricio Macri.

With the Paris Club, for its part, the payment deadline for a commitment of about $ 2.5 billion expires in May.

In this context, Francisco last week called on the IMF and the World Bank for a “significant reduction in debt” to poor countries, in what he saw as “a deeply human gesture”.

Ahead of this Wednesday’s meeting and the seminar they shared in February of last year, Guzmán’s first meeting with Francisco took place in May 2019, with a meeting at the Casa Santa Marta residence, in which the current minister was accompanied by the Nobel laureate of economics Joseph Stiglitz within the framework of an activity of the pontifical foundation Scholas Occurrentes.