The Andean Presidential Council, the most important body of the Andean Integration System, made up of the Presidents of the five countries of the region, will be meeting in Bolivia at the end of January. This is a "summit" that has been taking place at least once a year since 1989 to cobble together important agreements regarding the process and to approve the political decisions that are needed to boost it.

This Andean Presidential Council Meeting has a special significance. It has been some time now since the Presidents have gathered to examine the future of the Andean Community, as they will apparently do on this occasion. The fact is that this organization, despite having taken noteworthy strides, needs to face the truth, especially considering that the Common External Tariff has not yet been perfected in order to achieve a true customs union.

If we truly want an Andean Common Market, as is planned for 2005, each country will have to reflect upon the situation and state what it truly feels about Andean integration, transparently and openly. The Andean organizations, particularly its General Secretariat and its Court of Justice, have made laudable efforts to move this process ahead, as prescribed in the treaties that have been signed. But that is not enough; it is necessary for the Member Countries and their citizens to take active part in the process by complying fully with Community rules and regulations and appealing directly to Community bodies, as permitted by Andean treaties in a way that is unique in the world.

We must now improve our Andean integration process, because if we wait it may be too late. In doing so, it will doubtlessly be extremely useful to look back over the course we have taken since 1969. It is worth recalling what happened in the eighties, when the European Communities were relaunched after a troubling period of stagnation. Today, these nations have a reality that is called the European Union, with a Common Market and a single currency. The Andean process can be perfected in many ways to adjust it to the true situations and needs of our countries, especially now that the crises we are experiencing counsel the need for new alternatives. Even so, we must not deride or underestimate the Andean Community’s past, and even less so its present. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to boost integration processes like that of the Andean Community and now is the time to make the necessary changes in it.

For that reason, the initiative of the Bolivian government and its convening of a new meeting in which it appears that the governments are finally going to lay their cards on the table, are to be commended. Andean integration is a process like few in the world and for its development requires the cooperation of all of the Andean bodies, the countries and particularly their governments and legal systems, and the citizens themselves, in order to move ahead with an enterprise that is obviously not an easy one, but that is, probably, the only course left to us Latin Americans for emerging from our crisis and underdevelopment.