MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Public opinion rapidly loosing enchantment with Mercosur

Non delivered expectations are seriously eroding the strategic project

Mercosur supports significant institutional deficits, lacks clear bearings, negotiations with the European Union are stalled and there is a devalued public opinion perception of the block, which is attempting to become a customs union.

The remarks belong to Jose Quijano Director of the Mercosur secretariat during a seminar in Montevideo organized by the German foundation Konrad Adenauer on “Mercosur challenges and prospects”.

However Quijano made a positive assessment of the regional integration process initiated in Paraguay in 1991 with the founding members, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, plus Venezuela in the process of incorporation.

“Beyond its limits and difficulties Mercosur is the best path, maybe the only one, of good regional linkage, which is not excluding but implies the creation of a scenario with a long term strategic project”, said Quijano.

Nevertheless the ongoing spats of Argentina with Uruguay over pulp mills, River Plate channel dredging and financial operations, plus the claims of the smaller Mercosur members regarding the attitude and decision making process of Argentina and Brazil are constantly surfacing.

These conflicts have had an eroding impact on the expectations originally created in public opinion about Mercosur. Goals and achievement probably too optimistic at the start, are no longer questioned, what is challenged now are the benefits of being part of such an association.

Uruguay is the seat of the administrative offices of Mercosur and will be taking over from Paraguay (where the next summit is scheduled in July) the rotating presidency of the group for the next six months.

Eliminating the double common external tariff charge, the international standing and insertion of the group and re-launching the stalled negotiations with the European Union are the main objectives of the Uruguayan agenda for the next six months, anticipated Uruguay’s Foreign Affairs minister, Gonzalo Fernandez.

“I think Mercosur is half way between what was planned as an objective under the Asuncion Treaty of 1991 and what we can see today”, said Fernandez.

“We are quite close to drafting solutions for the double common external tariff charge and the Customs Code, but we have also been through several pro tempore presidencies of the group trying to conclude them and we still haven’t”, admitted Fernandez.

The double common external tariff charge refers to merchandise introduced to one member of Mercosur and then transported to a second. Currently it must pay twice and not an only time.

With the Customs code, country members still have to address challenges posed by export duties (an important source of income for the Argentine treasury) and how to distribute the proceeds of customs revenue. Paraguay with the weakest economy, smallest trade volume and cash short feels it could become a bureaucratic victim