Colombia assumes presidency of Andean Community and its bodies

Lima, July 7, 2002. On July 7, 2002, Colombia assumed the chairmanship of the Andean Presidential Council, the bodies of the Andean Integration System and its committees for a one-year period.

Following the alphabetical order of succession established in Decision 427, Colombia will head the Andean Presidential Council, the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, the Andean Community Commission, the Business and Labor Advisory Councils and the CAN Committees for one calendar year.

Other bodies and institutions of the Andean Integration System, such as the Andean Community General Secretariat, the Andean Parliament, the Court of Justice, the Andean Development Corporation and the Latin American Reserve Fund have their own systems for designating their highest-level authorities.

Bolivian Foreign Minister Gustavo Fernández transferred the leadership of the CAN’s Pro Tempore Secretariat to Colombia during the Tenth Meeting of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers in enlarged session with the Ministers of Trade.

After giving an account of Bolivia’s accomplishments at the head of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, Minister Fernández announced that integration “is an inescapable need,” now that the Andean Community, the region and the world are confronting turbulent situations and serious problems -and probably will continue to do so ever more intensively over the next few years.

Fernández referred to the joint efforts of the Andean nations to expand the ATPA; to the dialogue between the CAN and the European Union in New York and Madrid; to the negotiations with Mercosur, which he considered to be “a pending task;” to the joint meeting of Foreign Ministers and Ministers of Defense that “opened up a new dimension in Andean relations;” and, in particular, to the Santa Cruz Summit “which, by making it possible to re-present the collective vision of the CAN, constituted a milestone in the CAN’s history.”

In receiving the position from Bolivia, Colombian Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernández de Soto, who in turn was elected by acclamation as the CAN’s new Secretary General, called upon the nations to work together because “integration is our course and our united front must be our guiding strategy.”

“We do not have to invent our integration. Nor is it built on shaky foundations. Precisely the contrary. It already rests on solid foundations and there are many reasons to shore these up and further deepen them,” the Colombian Foreign Minister stressed.