EFE Agency
Guayaquil, October 14, 2008

The Andean countries today put their discrepancies on hold and decided to try to salvage the negotiation of an Association Agreement with the European Union (EU) that was threatening to sunder the South American group. 

For that reason, the Andean Community (CAN) Presidents, who today held a Summit meeting in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, agreed to ask the EU for a new meeting in order to break the stalemate. 

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe failed to attend because of diplomatic disagreements with Ecuador dating back to last March, but he did appoint his Vice- Minister of Foreign Trade, Eduardo Muñoz, to represent him. 

Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, who called the meeting, pointed out that despite the existence of internal discrepancies, the CAN has decided to attempt to salvage its negotiations with the EU, notwithstanding the intention of that bloc to advance its trade agreements separately with Colombia and Peru, leaving out Ecuador and Bolivia. 

The Presidents of Ecuador, Bolivia, Evo Morales, and Peru, Alan García, who attended the Summit, together with the Colombian Government delegate, voiced the need to maintain Andean integration, above and beyond any disagreements.  

They also decided to summon Chile, now an Associate Member of CAN, and to call upon Mexico and Panama, which have applied to join the Community, to speed up their arrangements for doing so. 

Correa insisted that the CAN is strongly committed to engaging in “bloc-to-bloc” negotiations with Europe, but that, given the circumstances, it must adjust to the “different speeds” set by each of the Andean countries. 

The President of Peru, for his part, stated at the conclusion of the meeting, that the Summit had been “excellent,” for it had permitted the participants to “talk at length” and to resolve their problems. 

García noted that during the event the proposal was made to request a meeting with the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Duaro Barroso, who will be told about the efforts of the Andean countries to affirm their right to “negotiate as a bloc.”

That meeting, which could be held at the end of October in San Salvador, taking advantage of the Ibero-American Summit, could, in García’s judgment, break the stalemate. 

"I hope (that meeting) will be highly productive in terms of allowing us to discuss the topics of the talks in all honesty,” so that we can see “whether there is any possibility of conducting a joint negotiation at different speeds,” or whether the EU will decide “to do so bilaterally or by smaller groups” chosen from among those in the CAN,” he pointed out. 

According to García, there is a possibility that the CAN will accept the position assumed by the EU, “or vice versa, that the position of the Andean countries will be respected by the European Union.”

"We are going to see whether it is possible for President Barroso of the EU to get together with us on the 28th, 29th or 30th of this month in San Salvador,” he commented, declaring that this meeting would be “highly important,” for it would allow us “to define the negotiating formulas.”

He denied that internal disagreements within the CAN are jeopardizing the regional integration process because, in his opinion, Andean unity “does not depend upon the actors, laws and institutions.”

"The Andean nations are linked up socially, geographically and ethnically and their trade is growing stronger” every day, making their integration impossible to impair, García added, after insisting that the negotiations with the EU are important to all four members of the CAN. 

Bilateral trade between the CAN and the EU adds up to almost 20,000 million dollars a year and the agreements could open up a potential market of 500 million people, according to the CAN.  EFE