Bolivia will formally request Mercosur full membership in 2013
Bolivia will begin the coming year formal talks for full membership of Mercosur, for which it has the support from Uruguay, said diplomatic sources from both countries, Bolivian Deputy Foreign minister Juan Carlos Alurralde met with his Uruguayan counterpart Roberto Conde in the framework of the “Bolivia-Uruguay coordination and consultation mechanism” sixth meeting in La Paz.
“We can’t forget that Uruguay will be holding the chair of Mercosur next year and starting January 2013 a host of activities are going to be defined including a critical path for Bolivia to join the group as a full member”, said Alurralde.
Conde said Uruguay will offer all its support for Bolivia’s incorporation and facilitate the process, helping the country “not to lose any of the trade preferences it enjoys with other accords with third countries”.
“It’s a matter of not making Bolivia pay a price or lose those accords it has achieved in international trade talks because of its decision to join Mercosur. In this Uruguay will offer its support particularly in the negotiations process”, added Conde.
Mercosur is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, suspended because of the removal following political impeachment of Fernando Lugo from the presidency, and Venezuela admitted during the dictated absence of Paraguay.
Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador are associate members while Venezuela joined officially last July 31st.
The two top officials also talked about Uruguay’s port facilities for land-locked Bolivia which would enable La Paz to use them for storage “with no need to pay any tariffs when they are moved” to the Atlantic ocean.
Another issue was the construction of a pipeline to supply Bolivian natural gas to Paraguay and Uruguay. The two year old project, still in the blueprint, would extend from the wells in southern Bolivia to the Paraguayan capital Asuncion and Montevideo.
However Conde admitted that at the moment investing in a gas pipeline “does not justify the cost” if it will only supply Uruguay. But if some other system could be implemented including an export terminal, using the Paraguay-Parana rivers water-way, then “it would be a viable option”.
“A gas pipeline for Uruguay only is not commercially viable, unless we have an export terminal making use of the ample port facilities in Montevideo. But we must first build a market for the export of Bolivian natural gas”, said Conde.
Other issues addressed at the bilateral meeting included agriculture, defence, health, migration, trade, tourism and investments.
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then Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador,
then the rest of South America,
then Central America,
then the Caribbean ...
Once Merosur becomes the same as Unasur,
and then becomes the same as the OAS (minus the big boys),
then trade blocs become the same as economic blocs become the same as political blocs ...
become totally unable to operate coherently politically, economically or trade-wise. The only coherence will be hot air and exhortations and, because the bloc rules just can't work, the whole region becomes black economy, black trade and black politics.
But this is The Americas (minus the big boys),
and hot air and exhortations is the stock in trade of the 'coherent Left'.
Simon Bolivar, the darling of the Left (strange, because he has more in common with the fascist SA Right) would be intrigued to see the all-embracing chaos across this part of the world that his 'philosophy' is leading to under the influence of Hugo Chavez and his acolytes.
Excellent post, especially about the malignant effect of Venezuela.
dont take it seriously as a economic/trade bloc.
just ahead of a kind of “” Regional Energy Bloc “” which is very normal to defend themself in the form of semi cartelization.
Hope our country never will ask for full membership....Chile don't need them to be a developing country....Better alone that with bad company...you know..!!!!
Pope loves which country more !....Chile ?...Argentina ?
abruptly i remembered that
in 1984 Chile and Argentina settled their long standing dispute over three island in the Beagle Channel off the southern tip of the Terra del Fuego,this dispute that had brought these two countries to the brink of war....a Papal mediation ruled for Chile and Argentina accepted the decision......
And just why would any country use the offices of El Diablo?
Consistently denied the systematic buggering of choir and alter boys by his illusterous clergy. At least they were not wankers, they were ten times worse.
Only Nicaragua and Cuba missing...
RIP MERCOSUR
The exclusion of Paraguay from mercosur is more hurting for the Bloc in the long run than for the country itself IMO, as Mujica said, Mercosur needs to be more flexible, and maybe get a more clear way of intereacting with countries in and out of mercosur if it wishes to grow as an economic bloc. Not doing that will only result in countries from the region symply seeking help or support from other places and blocs such as Unasur, Alba, Pacific Alliance, OAS, etc. Ideally, Unasur would have been a better place to discuss Paraguay situation than Mercosur.
There is only one supra-national organisation designed for this local matter:
It should have been discussed within Parlasur, the supernational legislature (policy and political organisation) of the Mercosur nations.
Mercosur - a 'customs organisation' - was entirely inappropriate;
and so was Unasur, because it contains many nations with no legal interest in the region.
Unlikely the EU will be signing any trade deals with murcosur any time soon.
It will be interesting to see how it competes for space with the many other regional organisations, however how things develop with the Pacific alliance will be the big question.
As for the gas pipeline, Argentina may be interested in buying gas.
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