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TRADE: Andean Community Integration Feels Strain of Discrepancies
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 22 (IPS) - Trade agreements are one thing and integration is
another, "so dissatisfaction with the former should not deter us from the
latter," according to Allan Wagner, secretary-general of the Andean
Community, who is trying to paper over the cracks in Latin America's oldest
trade bloc.
The bloc formed by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela has been
experiencing a sort of "Black November," due to differences expressed this
month on the very issues that led to its creation 36 years ago, such as
trade negotiations with third party countries and united positions at
international forums.
There have also been discrepancies over questions that have arisen more
recently, like the best way forward for the incipient South American
Community of Nations, or military agreements to combat drug trafficking,
terrorism and insurgency.
At the same time, however, there has been progress on energy agreements, and
in seeking accords on fulfilling basic social needs.
"Andean integration is not occurring in outer space, it is neither a simple
nor an easy matter, but we know where we must place our solidarity and
alliances," said Wagner in Caracas.
It was the very president pro tem of the Andean Community, Venezuela's
leader Hugo Chávez, who said a week ago that his country "has nothing to
gain from the present Andean Community," because "our course is set in the
direction of the Mercosur (Southern Common Market), where the axis of South
American liberation is to be found: Caracas-Brasilia-Montevideo-Buenos
Aires."
He was referring to the leftist or centre-left governments currently in
power in Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.
Venezuela is set to become a full member of Mercosur - comprised of
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - in December.
Wagner said Chávez's remarks "reflect our dissatisfaction with the Andean
Community as it is now, because it is quite clear that trade agreements are
one thing and integration is another. Integration has to be political,
social and economic."
"If we are seeking integration merely for trading purposes, it's not worth
carrying on, because the bigger markets like the United States and the
European Union will have the advantage every time," he added.
Chávez did not hide his displeasure at the support that Venezuela's Andean
partners gave to the proposal to refloat negotiations in search of a Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a Washington initiative, the more so
because three of the countries - Colombia, Ecuador and Peru - are discussing
a free trade treaty with the United States.
At the Summit of the Americas held early this month in the southeastern
Argentine resort city of Mar del Plata, Venezuela aligned itself with the
full members of Mercosur in rejecting the revival of the FTAA talks, as the
other 29 participating countries were pushing for.
To make matters worse, the three heads of state who are discussing a trade
treaty with Washington, namely Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, Alfredo Palacio of
Ecuador and Alejandro Toledo of Peru, posed for photographs with U.S.
President George Bush, who is a fierce opponent of Chávez.
Neither did the summit prove to be the key to finalising the hemisphere-wide
free trade treaty.
In the meantime, negotiators from the three Andean countries were working
against the clock with their U.S. counterparts in Washington to resolve
differences over agricultural exports, textiles, rules of origin,
intellectual property rights on medicines, and telecommunications.
Peru, realising that it was further ahead in the talks than its neighbours,
suggested that it sign its own treaty with the United States before all of
the negotiators pack their bags on Dec. 6 to head to the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference in Hong Kong.
And last week, delegates of the military high commands of Bolivia, Colombia,
Ecuador and Peru met with the delegate from the United States in Quito, and
invited Brazil but excluded the fifth member of the Andean Community,
Venezuela.
While renewing its military alliances with the other Andean countries to
combat drug trafficking, guerrillas and terrorism, the Bush administration
accuses Venezuela - without providing concrete evidence - of trying to
destabilise its neighbours and criticises Caracas's decision to buy Russian,
Spanish and Brazilian arms.
Meanwhile, trade has increased among the other Andean countries to a total
of more than 5 billion dollars a year.
Wagner, however, believes that "what was born (in 1969, with the additional
participation at that time of Chile) as a large-scale development project
has ended up as a trading scheme."
For that reason he welcomed the idea to hold an extraordinary meeting of the
Andean Presidential Council on Jan. 12-13, 2006 to invigorate the bloc's
agenda.
In the first place, the presidents will create Petroandina, a platform for
cooperation on energy matters. Energy ministers will be meeting to prepare
for this at the end of this month.
The leaders will also discuss putting into effect a "humanitarian social
fund" for health, housing, education and sanitation programmes targeting the
poorest sectors of society, to which Venezuela has offered to contribute 50
million dollars, Wagner pointed out. The other countries may contribute
cash, goods or labour.
"We need a strategy for social cohesion across the Andean countries, and we
need integration to reach the people on the ground, who have not even
realised that the process exists. Integration has been a topic for the
owners of export businesses," rather than for the public at large, Wagner
admitted.
"A new agenda will allow us to build a new Andean Community. In time,
however, the emergence of the South American Community of Nations will fuse
us all together and neither the Andean Community nor the Mercosur will be
needed any longer,"
he stated.
(END/2005)
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