The presidents of the five Mercosur member countries—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela—are set to meet on Tuesday (Jul 29) in Caracas, capital of Venezuela, the country that currently holds the bloc’s rotating chair. This will be first meeting to be attended by the representatives of all five nations, thus marking the return of Paraguay to the summit meetings of the group.

Paraguay had been suspended from Mercosur from June 2012 to 2013. The other members at the time (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay) questioned the promptness with which Paraguay’s Congress removed then-President Fernando Lugo, who was given no more than two hours to defend himself from the allegations of poor performance in office. It was in this political context that Venezuela became an official member of the bloc. The country’s admission was only pending approval by the Paraguayan Parliament, but the suspension canceled its right of say and vote.

At the summit, the 46th of its kind, the agenda includes the dispute of the Argentinian government over the so-called vulture funds, which raises the country’s risk of having to declare its second debt moratorium in 13 years. This would aggravate the domestic economic crisis even further, and also make a negative impact on the bloc’s member countries, not least on the trade agreement with the European Union, another topic for the meeting.

The government of Argentina—the next nation to hold Mercosur’s rotating chair—sent to New York on Monday (Jul 28) a team of economic analysts in an attempt to further negotiations with the US court, which issued a ruling favorable to the vulture funds. Now Argentina must pay creditors $1.4 billion before any further negotiation is conducted over the debt.

Also as part of the agenda, the heads of state are to discuss Brazil’s proposal to bring into effect in 2019 rather than 2014 the no-tariff policy in the trade between Mercosur and Colombia, Peru and Chile. The conflict in the Gaza Strip is another issue to be addressed, as its death toll has reached over a thousand people, most of whom civilians.

According to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, the five Mercosur countries account for 72 percent of the territory and 70 percent of the population of South America. They also hold 80 percent of the continent’s GDP, and 58 percent of direct foreign investments and 65 percent of the trade overseas.