MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela and Chile to preside over another Latam unity group

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs minister who hosted the meeting

Venezuela and Chile will jointly preside over a new regional block to promote integration in the Americans but excluding United States and Canada was announced over the weekend during a meeting of Foreign Affairs ministers in Venezuela.

The presidency of the group called the Community of Latinamerican and Caribbean States or CELAC will be exercised by Chile and Venezuela for the 2010/2012 period, during which the two countries must organize the first two CELAC summits and draft the charter and “procedures document”.

The first objective of CELAC which convened over twenty Foreign Affairs ministers from the 32 member group is to follow up on the agreements reached in the Latin America, Caribbean Unity summit held in Mexico, last February when the creation of CELAC was agreed.

During the Caracas meeting the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs minister Nicolas Maduro presented what he referred to as the “Caracas Plan” which contains a group of objectives to consolidate the integration of the nations that make up the summit in areas such as “overcoming poverty and technological cooperation”.

According to Maduro the Caracas Plan also contemplates the need to build a multilateral and fair trade system and promotes discussions on the need to increased cooperation between the regional integration organizations such as Mercosur, Petrocaribe, Unasur and others.

The idea behind CELAC is to eventually create a parallel Organization of American States leaving out Washington and Ottawa and located outside the US.