1999. The positive results in trading and in key production sectors generated employment that gave way to improved salaries and pensions, a general increase in income that in turn increased investment and internal consumption. This boom panorama was drastically affected by the Brazilian crisis of 1998-1999, which reduced the products it bought from Uruguay; Brazil was the destination of more than a third of total Uruguayan exports. This interdependence was created within MERCOSUR, whose IX, XIII and XVII summits were hosted by Sanguinetti, respectively on the 7 December 1995 in Punta del Este, 15 December 1997 in Montevideo, and, again, on 8 December 1999, also in Montevideo. On 1 March 2000 his term as President ended and he handed over the Presidency to his colleague Jorge Batlle, who had won the elections on 28 November 1999. Among the many prominent politicians who took part in his government can be mentioned: Didier Opertti, Guillermo Stirling, Luis Antonio Hierro López, Álvaro Ramos, Luis Mosca, Luis Brezzo, Lucio Cáceres, Juan Antonio Chiruchi, and Ariel Davrieux. The Nationalist leader Alberto Volonté was pivotal in daily affairs of the government coalition. Post-2000 Always active in journalism and in the cultural world, during his break from presidential duties between 1990 and 1995 Sanguinetti was a columnist for the EFE Press Agency and El País, both Spanish companies. His link with Spain was strengthened as the Director of several Seminars organized by the Complutense University in Madrid and as a lecturer in summer courses at the Menéndez Pelayo International University in Santander. Since 1996 he has promoted the work of individuals from the political and intellectual world, including the former Colombian President Belisario Betancur, the former Spanish President, Felipe González, the former President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos and the former President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This group is known as the Montevideo Circle. Since 1990, he has also been President of the PAX Institute, an academic foundation for international action. He is likewise a member of the InterAcción Council – another forum for retired world leaders that centers its work on the elaboration of reports and studies offering advice on diverse areas of the international arena- as well as of the Council of Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a member of Washington D.C. based Western Hemisphere think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue. He professed support for the same-sex