Ecuador receives the position of President Pro Tempore of the CAN from Colombia
It will seek to strengthen an “area of coexistence for development”

Lima, June 17, 2008.- Today, Ecuador assumed the position of President Pro Tempore of the Andean Community for a one year period, in a ceremony held during an expanded Meeting of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers with the CAN Commission, made up of Trade and Integration Ministers.

On receiving the position from Colombia, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, María Isabel Salvador, declared that her country was assuming the position of President Pro Tempore of the CAN with an “optimism born of our intrinsic vocation for change, renewal, transformation… “

She stated that Ecuador is convinced that “we must rapidly identify, using a pragmatic and flexible approach, an array of common interests in strategic areas that will convert the Andean Community into an environment where States and nations with different projects and visions can coexist.”

In summing up, she pointed out that “Ecuador’s proposal centers on recovering the Andean Community as an ‘area of coexistence for development,’ where Member Countries will find enough versatility to see their interests reflected and where, at the same time, priority is given to action that the CAN’s existing institutions and the political and economic realities of its Member Countries can make effectively viable.”   

The outgoing Chairman of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, Fernando Araújo Perdomo, for his part, described some of the activities carried out while Colombia served as the CAN’s President Pro Tempore.  He mentioned the three rounds of negotiations of the CAN-EU Association Agreement, the revival of the CAN’s Common Foreign Policy through the deepening of its relations with other countries; and the significant advances made in the fight against the scourges of corruption and drugs, among other things. 

He went on to state that the circumstances and realities of our countries have changed and that, as a result, “our integration process cannot be allowed to remain static, it must be sufficiently dynamic and flexible to confront the challenges looming on the new international scene where all our visions may be accommodated, and where our true task is to achieve unity within our diversity.” 

He indicated that in this aim “the work of the CAN General Secretariat is vitally important, in the degree to which it is a cohesive element that backs the process and gives it a measure of continuity, providing the political and institutional conditions, both internal and external, that can enable the CAN to move ahead with the greatest possible stability.” 

During the ceremony of the handover of the office of President Pro Tempore of the CAN, reports were also given by the outgoing Chairman of the Andean Community Commission and Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism of Colombia, Luis Guillermo Plata, and the Secretary General of the CAN, Freddy Ehlers, about their activities over the period of June 2007 to June 2008.

Luis Guillermo Plata stated that as of June 2007, action has been taken to promote the strengthening of Community bodies and the perfecting of the free trade area and advances have been made toward consolidating the enlarged market and Andean coordination in relation to third parties.  He also mentioned matters of interest that still remain to be defined.

 Freddy Ehlers, for his part, in presenting the June 2007-June 2008 Report on the Activities of the CAN General Secretariat, pointed up the accomplishments of 39 years of integration and underscored the dimension of the challenges to be met by the Andean countries in order to cope successfully with the dramatic changes taking place across the world.