Lima, July 19, 2005.- The dialogue sustained by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías with the Andean integration bodies at his first working meeting as President Pro Tempore of the Andean Community resulted in several initiatives to expedite the social agenda of the integration process and the convening of a working session of the Andean Integration System for this coming September.

The participants in the dialogue, conducted from 9 a.m. to nearly 1 p.m. , were the representatives of the integration organs and institutions: the CAN General Secretariat, the Andean Parliament, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), the Andean Business and Labor Councils, and the Andean Health Body –Hipólito Unanue Convention, together with Venezuelan Ministers and high-level officials under the direction of President Chávez.

President Chávez expressed his firm intent to work for the social integration of the nations and convened a meeting of the highest-level authorities of the Andean integration bodies for this coming September 9 and 10, in order to define an agenda and a short- and medium-term working timetable. He further announced that a meeting of the Presidencies Pro Tempore of the CAN and MERCOSUR would be held this coming August and a donation of one million dollars was being made to strengthen the CAN’s General Secretariat.

He expressed his satisfaction at the reception given to Venezuela’s proposal for an energy alliance among the Andean Presidents and explained that what is involved is not an enterprise merger, but a coordination of actions that will make it possible to guarantee an energy supply in the future. He went on to state that the idea is to ensure that Petroandina is created this coming December during the special summit to be held at that time.

President Chávez and the representatives of the integration bodies agreed on the importance of the people’s participation in the integration process. “Integration is not possible without the participation of the people,” Chávez insisted.

CAN Secretary General, Allan Wagner Tizón, expressed his certainty that the Venezuelan Presidency of the CAN, exercised by President Chávez, will heavily promote the objective of socially inclusive development incorporated into the integration process at the Quirama and Quito Summits and strengthened through the agreements adopted at the Lima Summit.

Luis Alva Castro, Vice-President of the Andean Parliament, expressed his conviction that “integration will only be achieved if the peoples are integrated.” In this connection, he pointed up the agreements adopted at the Lima Andean Summit to establish an energy alliance and to create a social and solidarity fund, as well as the fact that in Peru, representatives to the Andean Parliament will be chosen this year through direct elections, as is already being done in Ecuador and Venezuela. “This will make the participation, democratizing and interlinkage of the citizens possible,” he went on to emphasize.

José Gregorio Ibarra, Chairman of the Andean Labor Advisory Council, for his part, asked for assistance in obtaining the ratification and implementation of the Simón Rodríguez Convention, a tripartite mechanism for dialogue on social and labor issues among workers, entrepreneurs and Labor Ministers and delivered a series of proposals to the CAN Presidency Pro Tempore. “For our countries, Andean integration is an essential step toward development,” he stressed.

Among the initiatives put forward at the meeting were the designing of a project to expedite connectivity and new technologies --which President Chávez suggested be called Infoandina--; the promotion of Andean tourism and of working committees for dialogue and concerted action between political and social actors, and the formal installation of the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, among other things.