Fernández de Soto proposes Andean Community-United States Framework Agreement

Lima, Nov. 8, 2002. Andean Community (CAN) Secretary General, Guillermo Fernández de Soto, today proposed the signing of “a framework agreement between the United States and the Andean countries,” which “two or three countries could” join initially “and those that do not yet wish to could accede to at a later date.”

He put forward this proposal before representatives of Peru’s most important trade associations during the presentation on “The Andean Community: Between Globalization and Regionalism,” organized by the International Chamber of Commerce of Peru (ICC-Peru).

After underscoring the importance of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), he declared that “we must definitely reach an agreement in that direction,” but went on to warn that “it will not be easy, inasmuch as Chile, for example, has already spent one decade attempting to do so and in the case of the Andean countries, each has its own political targets and moves at its own speed.”

“Invoking the varying geometry that permitted the Europeans to ‘disembark’ at different times during the convergences -of trade, finances, and monetary policies--, I wish to propose the possibility of achieving a framework agreement between the United States and the Andean countries,” he stressed, after referring to the fact that the United States Trade Representative in Quito, Robert Zoellick, had reaffirmed its interest in negotiating with the CAN.

During his presentation, the CAN Secretary General described the approaches to globalization that exist in the region based on a series of myths and demonstrated, in figures, the Andean Community’s potential and the substantial change that has taken place in the Andean integration process since its launching.

“If, in the 70s, ours was a closed and protectionist integration, in keeping with the prevailing doctrines, by the 90s it had become an open process which seeks to act as a vehicle for our countries’ competitive insertion within the world economy,” he emphatically stated.

He proceeded to explain that “the integration process is a part of what is known as open regionalism. This has meant that at the same time as they belonged to a Free Trade Area, the Andean countries were negotiating several trade agreements, some bilateral and others as a community.”

Fernández de Soto underscored the fact that “while for a long time integration was limited to tariff negotiations, today its action extends to the political arena, the social field, and the areas of culture and education.”

“The basic aim of the Andean Community is to become a sole market, with neither borders nor customs barriers. But it must also be a community in which human rights are respected, a single democratic area, but one with a social dimension -in other words, one that includes policies for improving income distribution. It must also be a zone of peace, with mechanisms for collective security,” he concluded.