MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguayan Senate ready to vote incorporation of Venezuela to Mercosur

President Cartes had to finally yield to the pressures from Argentina and Brazil

The Paraguayan Senate is expected to vote this Tuesday the incorporation of Venezuela to Mercosur as full member in an extraordinary meeting, according to Senator Julio César Velázquez from the ruling party. To have the Venezuelan protocol approved 23 out of 45 Senators have to lift their hands, but according to previous surveys only 15 are expected to dissent.

 All the ruling party Senators, 19, have pledged to support the initiative plus sufficient votes from minority parties, which could take the number of at least 30.
Senator Velazquez admitted talking with the media that regional powers “Argentina and Brazil have extraordinary weight, and accepting what they impose is reality, and not because we want to yield”
He added that Paraguay was arbitrarily suspended from Mercosur in June 2012, following the removal because of incompetence of then president and former bishop Fernando Lugo, “but at the time the decision belonged to Argentina and Brazil” not Venezuela which until then was in the request waiting list.
Following the suspension of Paraguay by the rest of Mercosur, the group immediately approved the incorporation of Venezuela as full member, to which Paraguay was strongly opposed since it did not approve the 'authoritarian tactics' of former president Hugo Chavez.
Paraguay must accept the facts of life, and hopefully the rest of Mercosur will respect the founding charter of the group or the Asunción Treaty (1991), said Senator Velazquez who added “we trust that from now onwards respect for rule of the law and the Mercosur charter will be effectively complied”.
Velazquez recalled that presidents Dilma Rousseff and Cristina Fernandez from Brazil and Argentina, respectively convinced their Paraguayan peer Horacio Cartes to fully re-integrate to Mercosur.
“Brazil and Argentina are regional powers and many times even when we don't want to yield or insist in prevalence of our rights, they painfully force us to accept situations”, a scenario which is not absent at world level: “what happened with all the spying by the US of Germany, its allies and even Brazil: they didn't declare war on the US government”.
Back in August 2012, during the government of caretaker president Federico Franco, the Paraguayan Senate in retaliation for the suspension from Mercosur voted 31 against admitting Venezuela into the trade group, with only three votes in support and 11 lawmakers absent from the floor. The vote was taken exactly two months after Mercosur 'big brothers' Argentina and Brazil, alleging politics 'sometimes' is more important than 'institutions', had suspended Paraguay and accepted Venezuela as full member.
Under Mercosur rules any new incorporation must be a unanimous decision with all member countries present, which did not happen in June last year since Paraguay had just been suspended.