Lima, July 7, 2005. The Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, meeting in enlarged session with the CAN Commission, today granted Andean Community Associate Membership status to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, in response to the request made by those MERCOSUR States Parties.

Participants in the meeting, held by videoconference under the chairmanship of Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manuel Rodríguez Cuadros, and Peruvian Foreign Trade Minister, Alfredo Ferrero, included the Ministers, Vice-Ministers and representatives of the Andean Foreign and Trade Ministries, together with the CAN Secretary General, Allan Wagner Tizón.

Andean Community Secretary General, Ambassador Allan Wagner, considered that the culmination of the process of association of the MERCOSUR countries with the CAN “is, without a doubt, highly symbolic and a matter of the greatest importance for the convergence of the two subregional blocs, with a view to forming the South American Community of Nations.”

Both the Cartagena Agreement and the Treaty of Asunción --the constitutive Treaties of the CAN and MERCOSUR, respectively-- stipulate that the status of associate may only be granted to those countries that, in addition to expressing their interest, have signed free trade agreements with the Parties Members of the respective constitutive instrument. By virtue of this, MERCOSUR has already granted the status of Associate State to the Andean Community countries at their request, and now the Andean Community has done the same.