Jagdeo bats for Caricom at Mercosur summit

President Bharrat Jagdeo, as Chairman of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), made a pitch for Caricom at the Mercosur summit, highlighting the importance of bringing the regions of South America and the Caribbean together.

This was during his participation in a plenary session of the Mercosur Summit last Friday, December 17th, in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. President Jagdeo said the two regions can form a sizeable bloc that is strong enough to impact every major global decision.

Despite the relatively small size of Caricom in terms of geography, population and gross domestic product, the UNASUR Chairman remains optimistic that there are opportunities for Caricom to integrate with South America via Mercosur. He said that, given the imbalances in the global arena, it is important for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and global trade affairs to find a special niche for small countries. 

“We have just emerged from a situation where we had to negotiate an agreement with the European Union that is based upon full reciprocity. How can a country with 35,000 people, like St Kitts and Nevis, trade with the European Union and the USA? You have more people who work in that building than live in that entire country of St Kitts and Nevis,” President Jagdeo said.

At the inaugural Caricom-Brazil Summit, outgoing Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had called for a free trade agreement between the four-member Mercosur bloc (Brazil Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and Caricom. As Dilma Rousseff succeeds President Lula as the new leader of Brazil, President Jagdeo expressed hope that President Lula’s legacy of pushing a trade agreement between the Caribbean and Mercusor continues. 

The Brazil-Caricom Summit has been seen as the initiation of the process of integration involving Latin America and the Caribbean countries. According to President Jagdeo, the process provides the main tools to argue the case for special preferential treatment in trading arrangements. 

“I hope that we will see the same support that we have from President Lula in pushing a trade agreement between the Caribbean and Mercosur, and that the new Brazilian government will be, as (Brazil) has always been, supportive of this strive to integrate the Caribbean, even though we are not a technical trading entity,” President Jagdeo said. 

He assured that all efforts will be made to ensure that President Lula’s work towards a South American/Caribbean union continues. 

Mercosur was established on March 26, 1991, when the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay signed the Asunción Treaty in Paraguay, declaring the establishment of the group. 

The body was established to promote the scientific and technological progress and economic modernisation of its member states, to improve people’s livelihoods, and to advance the economic integration process in Latin America. In 2008, Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations formed what eventually became UNASUR. Guyana assumed the presidency of UNASUR on November 26.

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