Address by the Foreign Minister of Colombia and Chair of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, Doctor Carolina Barco
Bogotá, March 11, 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I cordially welcome this Andean Council of Foreign Ministers to the Palace of San Carlos, where we will take up issues of basic importance for the future of our Community.

We have come to this meeting confronted by the great challenge of coordinating lines of action that will enable us to cope with the difficult situation that confronts our Community today.

The problems that have arisen within the Group in recent months, particularly in the economic area, as well as the obstacles to our presentation as a bloc in the trade negotiations, have become a major challenge to the consolidation of our integration process.

The day of Reflection for our first session has become the sole space in which we can transparently and realistically analyze the course set by our Community, with a view toward moving it into increasingly sounder stages.

In today’s agenda, we shall, furthermore, address major political and social issues concerning our integration process. Here, I stress the definition of some parameters for strategic negotiations, in preparation for the forthcoming Andean Community - European Union Ministerial meeting, to be held in Greece at the end of the month.

This new stage of our relations with the European Union has become the major focal point of our foreign policy. But it is not the only one. The agenda for our external projection calls, as well, for the deepening and consolidation of our relations with Mercosur, the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia.

The important advances that have been made in dealing with our intracommunity political agenda is another of the issues to be addressed this morning. The development of the Lima Commitment through the holding of the First Meeting of the High-level Group on Security and Confidence-Building, as well as the progress made in implementing the Andean Plan for the Control of Illegal Drugs, are elements that we should draw attention to.

We will approve important Decisions on social and border development matters, such as the Andean Health Plan in Border Areas, and will move ahead with the democratizing of our integration process by giving our countries’ social sectors an increasingly active role to play in it.

From the broadness of the agenda on which we will concentrate our efforts today, it is clear that the Andean Community possesses a highly valuable store of capital built up in recent years that we must conserve, and that we must chart the course for moving ahead with a project that can be of such benefit to us all.

Thank you very much.