Andean presidents back integration and underscore importance of negotiations with Mercosur

Lima, 4 Feb. 99. According to declarations made in Caracas as new head of state Hugo Chávez took office, the presidents of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela agree to back the Andean integration process and underscored the importance of their negotiations with Mercosur to create a free trade zone.

In statements to the press, the Andean presidents also gave their support to reinforcing Latin American integration, a subject emphasized yesterday by Chávez in his first address to Congress, by favoring a "confederation of nations from this part of the world" and advocating "a union that goes far beyond mere trading relations"

Speaking before representatives of 61 countries, Chávez announced that "our foreign policy will prioritize and urgently target the Caribbean, Andean, and Amazon fronts," and called for "consolidating a major power bloc in this part of the world" to realize "the dream shared by Bolívar, Sandino, Martí, and O'Higgins."

He felt that the negotiations between the Andean Community (CAN) and Mercosur "should continue," but urged his partners "to step on it," after voicing the warning that "within that mechanism for unity, our government is also considering the possibility of entering into a free trade agreement of some sort with Mercosur."

Colombian President Andrés Pastrana, for his part, told the press that "it is very important for the member countries to strengthen the Andean Community because this integration process will place us in a favorable position for entering Mercosur."

Jamil Mahuad, Ecuador's head of state, noted that Andean integration "could have advanced more rapidly than it has," but acknowledged the existence of "a strong will on the part of all of the presidents to speed up the process."

According to Mahuad, there is no contradiction between bilateral relations, relations within the Andean Community, relations with Mercosur, and relations with the rest of the world; he considered them all to be "fully complementary." "It is along this line of thinking that we should move ahead," he added.

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, after reporting that his country will be assuming the chairmanship of the Andean Community in June of this year, confirmed his interest in building up this integration process by maintaining "direct and personal contacts" with his counterparts in the other countries of the subregion.

On being asked about the negotiations between CAN and Mercosur, Fujimori had the following to say: "we must continue working so that Latin America will have the possibility of setting its own course," for "it has both the right and the specific weight to be a strong regional bloc in the international arena."

Bolivian President Hugo Banzer Suárez maintained, in statements to El Nacional, that the doctrinary position upholding Latin American integration is based on a process of gradual strengthening of subregional blocs so that these may later join together on more equitable bases "in a single continental integration process."

He went on to state that Bolivia "is a founding country of the Andean Community and places the maximum importance on that subregional interaction and on the need for it to progress and be consolidated."

Banzer explained that Bolivia is participating in the Amazon and River Plata basins for geographic reasons and that it is "gradually and realistically" taking part "in Mercosur in order to reinforce continental integration."

Andean Community Secretary General Sebastián Alegrett, in concluding, was of the opinion that "a Latin American economic bloc will have been consolidated between CAN and Mercosur" by December of this year.

In attending the Venezuelan presidential inauguration, Alegrett reported that three more meetings will be held before the first stage of the negotiations between CAN and Mercosur conclude in March. The second stage, immediately following, will come to an end in December, so that we can "start the year 2000 with an integrated Latin American space."