MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Promising prospects and skepticism bedevil Mercosur

President of the Mercosur representatives Standing Committee, Carlos “Chacho” Alvarez

The president of the Mercosur representatives Standing Committee, Carlos Alvarez said the block faces exceptional conditions for fulfilling its integration but also warned about the “Mercosur skeptics”.

"We have before us if not exceptional, very significant conditions for fulfilling integration", said the former Argentine vice president Alvarez in Havana, Cuba during the Economists forum on globalization and development problems. Alvarez said that the majority of South American, and Mercosur members, are currently ruled by governments "which are trying to change the relation between politics and economics". During the nineties the countries of the region were the victims of the "primacy of economics over politics" but currently "politics is back at the helm", something which is essential for any integration process which depends on "political willingness". However he also warned about a growing atmosphere of "Mercosur skepticism" and regretted that "geo-strategic integration" still is "not central to the agenda of Mercosur members' and of South America". "Integration politics is top of the discussions in the regional summits but later with the daily routine it returns to a second place", he added. Alvarez said that "we must be patient" with the regional integration process, but "if our countries do not accept that to integrate into this model we need a supranationality, then it's going to be very difficult to advance in the model we have designed and we repeatedly say we are committed to". Alvarez underlined that it's essential to build self financing mechanisms and strategies so that the whole region can get hold and participate of the "knowledge" wave, because if not, "we're condemned to commit the same mistakes of the past". "Now we're really happy with China. Argentina has gone through this process before, we were plain happy and celebrating our dependency and complementation with Britain in the XIX century. ¿What came out of all that? A city, not a country", he highlighted. Finally Alvarez considered as positive the fact that the region does not figure as a priority for United States, something "which is not bad". "The orthodox regret it and complain. I say NO, I thing we are very lucky, I think is good for us and Latinamericans, South Americansâ€Ã‚¦because we were never in the US agenda to share benefits or the success of development", said Alvarez.