DEVELOPMENT: Brazil, Argentina Unify Their International Stance

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jun 4 2003 (IPS) - Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unveiled a new diplomatic approach when he outlined the common positions of his country and Argentina this week before the Group of Eight (G8) most powerful countries and a dozen developing countries.

Lula cited Argentina’s new president, Nestor Kirchner, when he spoke of integration plans for Mercosur and Latin America in his address to the G8 Summit in Evian, France, making use of the agreement between Brasilia and Buenos Aires that they speak for each other in international forums.

Kirchner says the region’s integration projects are a strategic and political effort aimed at "improving our living conditions," Lula told the heads of state and government of the G8 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and United States), and of developing countries invited to the summit.

Mercosur, created in 1991 based on the precedent set by agreements between Argentina and Brazil, also includes Paraguay and Uruguay, covering some 215 million people.

Lula reiterated the importance of the accords between his country and Argentina in a subsequent speech at the Geneva headquarters of the International Labour Organisation.

This unique form of representation in international forums is possible because "our relationship is so close," says Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.

Since Lula took office Jan. 1, Brazil’s ties with Argentina have grown closer – at first with president Eduardo Duhalde, and now with Kirchner, who was sworn in on May 25.

But the bilateral mood could change if Argentina agrees to the U.S. request to send troops to participate in a multinational police force to maintain order in Iraq. The force would be commanded by the alliance headed by the United States, which invaded Iraq on Mar. 20 and now controls the Arab country.

Amorim said in an interview with IPS in Geneva that he lacked information to form an opinion on the U.S. request or about the decision that Argentina will take.

So the agreement between Brasilia and Buenos Aires on actions in international forums still stands. It establishes that "when Lula is present, Kirchner feels represented. And vice versa," said Amorim.

Lula attended the Evian summit as spokesman for the prevalent opinions of South American governments. Amorim commented that in speaking before an assembly of rich countries, it was natural that the Brazilian president would express the united spirit developed in his previous contacts with the leaders of eight South American nations.

Lula and Mexico’s President Vicente Fox received the explicit mandate of the presidents of the Latin American countries of the Rio Group to present some of their ideas to the G8 meeting.

Amorim played down the idea that there is rivalry between Mexico and Brazil for leadership in Latin America. Brazil, said the minister, is interested in Latin American integration, but when the Lula administration talks about integration its focus is on South America.

In conversations with Mexican officials "I haven’t felt any rivalry, only the desire to work together," he said.

In keeping with that approach, Lula’s international affairs adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcia, stated this week in Evian that Brazil does not aspire to region-wide leadership.

The integration process of Mercosur has been marked by ups and downs, which some observers attribute to Brazil’s patchy willingness to lead the four-nation bloc.

Amorim said his country is willing to play that role, but he defined leadership as accepting responsibility, which weighs on Brazil in particular because its economy is the largest in Latin America.

The minister was quick to point out that "this does not mean to say that the country is better than the others."

Brazilian diplomacy rejects the notion of leadership in the hegemonic sense, and Lula himself has insisted that taking a leadership role requires a big dose of generosity.

Under that approach, Brazil’s National Bank of Economic and Social Development has, over the past few months, opened lines of credit for several South American countries, including one of a billion dollars to finance Argentine exports.

But minister Amorim noted that such generosity must also come from Argentina to lend a hand to Paraguay and Uruguay, whose economies are dwarfed by those of their Mercosur partners.

Brazil has made the political decision to actively promote South American integration, he said.

While the United States is championing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) – to cover the hemisphere from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, excluding Cuba – Brazil is putting priority on negotiating a "four plus one" agreement between the four countries of Mercosur and the United States.

The Lula government seeks to establish close, mature and cooperative ties with the United States, a relationship that respects differences while making the most of the two countries’ points of consensus, stated Amorim.