Union of South American Nations

The Union of South American Nations (Spanish: Unión de Naciones Suramericanas, Portuguese: União das Nações Sul-Americanas and Dutch: Zuid-Amerikaanse Statengemeenschap, abbreviated as Unasur and Unasul) is a fledgling supranational and intergovernmental union that will unite two existing free-trade organizations – Mercosur and the Andean Community – as part of a continuing process of South American integration. It is modelled on the European Union.

According to agreements made thus far, the Union's headquarters will be located in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, while the location of its bank, the Bank of the South (Banco del Sur), is still under discussion (one proposal would establish it in Quito, Ecuador, as well). The Union's former designation, the South American Community of Nations (Spanish: Comunidad Sudamericana de Naciones and Portuguese: Comunidade Sul-Americana de Nações, abbreviated as CSN; Dutch: Zuid-Amerikaanse Statengemeenschap) was dropped at the First South American Energy Summit on April 16 2007.^[1]

Complete integration of the Andean Community and Mercosur to create Unasur/Unasul is expected by the Summit to be held in Colombia in January 2008.

Overview

At the Third South American Summit, on 8 December 2004, presidents or representatives from twelve South American nations signed the Cuzco Declaration, a two-page statement of intent, announcing the foundation of the South American Community. Panama attended the signing ceremony as an observer.

The leaders announced their intention to model the new community after the European Union, including a common currency, parliament, and passport. According to Allan Wagner, former Secretary General of the Andean Community, a complete union like that of the EU should be possible by 2019.

The mechanics of the new entity came out of the First South American Community of Nations Heads of State Summit, which was held in Brasília on 29 September-30 September 2005. An important operating condition of Unasur/Unasul is that no new institutions will be created in the first phase, so as not to increase bureaucracy, and the community will use the existing institutions belonging to the previous trade blocs. A constitutional treaty is also expected to be drafted.

Origins

Simón Bolívar, directly responsible for the independence of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, part of Peru and Bolivia in the early years of the 19th century, and honored with statues in the capital cities of practically every Latin American country, had the goal of creating a federation of nations to ensure prosperity and security after independence. Bolívar never achieved this goal, and died an unpopular figure because of his heavy-handed attempts to establish strong central governments in the nations he led to independence. Throughout the years, many in South America have called for social, political, and economic union. Unasur/Unasul is supposed to be a concrete step towards the achievement of such union.

Structure

At the moment, the provisional structure of the UNASUR is as follows:

The presidents of each member nation will have an annual meeting, this will be the superior political mandate. The first meeting was in Brasilia on September 29 and September 30 2005. The second meeting was in Cochabamba (Bolivia) on December 8 and December 9 2006. The third meeting will be held in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) in 2007.
The ministers of foreign affairs of each country will meet once every six months. They will formulate concrete proposals of action and of executive decision. The President of the Mercosur's permanent representatives committee and the director of the Mercosur's department, the Andean Community's general secretary, ALADI´s general secretary and the permanent secretaries of any institution for regional cooperation and integration, Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization among others, will also be present at these meetings.
A Secretary General would be elected, to establish a permanent secretariat in Quito, Ecuador. Former Ecuadorian President Rodrigo Borja has been nominated for this position.
Sectorial Ministers´ meeting will be called up by the presidents. The will be developed according to Mercosur's and CAN's mechanisms.
The temporary Presidency will be held for a year and will be rotative among the member countries between each CSN meeting. Former presidents: Peru (2004), Brazil (2005) and Bolivia (2006). According to Decisiones del Diálogo Político, which was signed during the I South American Energy Summit, a general permanent office will be created and this will be hosted in Quito (Ecuador).
On December 9 2005 a Comisión Estratégica de Reflexión sobre el Proceso de Integración Sudamericano (Commission in charge of impulsing the process of South American integration) was created. It consists of 12 members, whose function is to elaborate proposals that will help the process of integration between the South American nations. These proposals were to be done for the II CSN meeting (2006).
Executives Commission, which was created by the II CSN meeting, was transformed in the Political Commission or Delegates Council, according to the Decisiones del Diálogo Político, and
It is expected that for the III CSN meeting in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, December 2007, an agreement to constitute UNASUR will be ready.

Current work in progress

Single market

One of the initiatives of Unasur is the creation of a single market, beginning with the elimination of tariffs for non-sensitive products by 2014 and sensitive products by 2019.

Infrastructure cooperation

There is an Initiative for Infrastructure Integration of South America (IIRSA) underway, which has received the support of the Inter-American Development Bank and the Andean Development Corporation.

Unasur/Unasul started plans of integration through infrastructure cooperation with the construction of the Interoceanic Highway, a road that intends to more firmly link the Pacific Coast countries, specially Chile and Peru with Brazil and Argentina by extending highways through the continent, allowing better connections to ports to Bolivia and the inner parts of Argentina, Peru and Brazil. The first corridor, between Peru and Brazil, began construction in September 2005, financed 60% by Brazil and 40% by Peru, it's expected to be ready by the end of 2009.

The South American Energy Ring (Anillo Energético Sudamericano/Anel Energético Sul-Americano) is supposed to interconnect Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay with natural gas from several sources, such as the Camisea Gas Project in Peru and Tarija Gas Deposits in Bolivia. Though this proposal has been signed and ratified, economic and political difficulties in Argentina and Bolivia have delayed this initiative, and to this date, this agreement remains more like a protocol than an actual project, since Chile and Brazil are already building LNG terminals to import gas from overseas suppliers.

Free movement of people

Visits by South American citizens to any South American country (except French Guyana) of up to 90 days require only the presentation of an Identity Card issued by the respective authority of the travellers' country of origin. On 24 November 2006, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela waived visa requirements for tourism travel between nationals of said countries. ^[2]

Monetary Policy

The South American Bank (Banco del Sur), will establish monetary policy, and finance development projects. One of the goals of monetary union is the establishment of a single South American currency. Support for such currency was voiced on January 2007 by Peruvian President Alan García, and has been backed by other South American nations. ^[3]

Participating nations

Full members

Members of the Andean Community (CAN)¹:
- Bolivia (started in 2006 the process of joining Mercosur)
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- Peru

Members of Mercosur²:
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Paraguay
- Uruguay
- Venezuela

Other countries:
- Chile¹ ²
- Guyana³
- Suriname³

¹ These countries are also considered to be associate members of Mercosur
² These countries are also considered to be associate members of the Andean Community.
³ Guyana and Suriname are currently members of CARICOM and entered its single market in 2006. It is unknown if simultaneous Unasur and CARICOM membership would be possible to accomplish and most probably these states will remain Unasur associate members only.

Observer states

Panama

Non-participating territories

The following South American areas are dependent territories and therefore do not participate:

French Guiana, which is a département d'outre-mer of France and is therefore part of the European Union
The Falkland Islands or Islas Malvinas and South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, which are overseas territories of the United Kingdom, subject of claims of sovereignty by Argentina. (Compare Sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.)

Facts and figures

Has a GDP at current currency exchange rate of 1,917.8 billion dollars as estimated by the IMF in 2006. Due to robust currencies and economies, it is up from 1,506.8 billion in 2005 (World Bank). See List of countries by GDP (nominal).
Its population of 361 million people.
Covers an area of over 17 million square kilometers, larger than the largest country, Russia
The export earnings amount to 181 billion 856 million dollars
Possesses 27% of the world's freshwater sources
Has eight million square kilometers of forested land and is surrounded by two oceans
Is the world's foremost food producer and exporter
Its stock of hydrocarbon resources will last 100 years
Some 95 percent of its inhabitants share a single religion
The great majority of its inhabitants speak one of two world languages (Spanish & Portuguese)
Has a common history and shared values

Comparison with other regional blocs

This article or section needs to be updated.
Parts of this article or section are no longer up to date.
Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

**Most active regional blocs**
as of 2004
Regional bloc¹	Area (km²)	Population	GDP (PPP) ($US)		Member states¹
Regional bloc¹	Area (km²)	Population	in millions	per capita	Member states¹
Agadir	1,703,910	126,066,286	513,674	4,075	4
AU	29,797,500	897,548,804	1,515,000	1,896	53
ASEAN	4,400,000	553,900,000	2,172,000	4,044	10
CACM	422,614	37,816,598	159,536	4,219	5
CARICOM	462,344	14,565,083	64,219	4,409	(14+1)³
CCASG / GCC	2,285,844	35,869,438	536,223	14,949	6
CEFTA	298,148	28,929,682	222,041	7,675	(7+1)³
EU	4,325,675	496,198,605	12,025,415	24,235	27
EurAsEC	20,789,100	208,067,618	1,689,137	8,118	6
EFTA	529,600	12,233,467	471,547	38,546	4
GUAM	810,506	63,764,600	456,173	7,154	4
NAFTA	21,588,638	430,495,039	15,279,000	35,491	3
PARTA	528,151	7,810,905	23,074	2,954	(14+2)³
SAARC	5,136,740	1,467,255,669	4,074,031	2,777	8
Unasur / Unasul	17,339,153	370,158,470	2,868,430	7,749	12
UN and countries for reference²	Area (km²)	Population	GDP (PPP) ($US)		Units⁴
UN and countries for reference²	Area (km²)	Population	in millions	per capita	Units⁴
UN	133,178,011	6,411,682,270	55,167,630	8,604	192
Brazil	8,514,877	188,078,261	1,594,482	9,108	27
Canada	9,984,670	32,507,874	1,165,000	35,200	13
India	3,287,590	1,102,600,000	4,042,000	3,700	35
Japan	377,873	128,085,000	4,220,000	33,100	47
PR China⁵	9,596,960	1,306,847,624	10,000,000	7,600	33
Russia	17,075,200	143,782,338	1,723,000	12,100	89
USA	9,631,418	300,000,000	12,980,000	43,500	50
Source: CIA World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database. Legend smallest value among the blocs compared largest value among the blocs compared Footnotes ¹ Including data only for full and most active members. ² Including the largest five countries by area, population and GDP (PPP), but not #4 in population or #5 in GDP (PPP). ³ Including non-sovereign autonomous areas of other states. ⁴ Members or administrative divisions. ⁵ Data for the People's Republic of China does not include Hong Kong, Macau, or regions administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Quotes

Dignitaries attend the signing of the Cuzco Declaration.

We are here to make Simón Bolívar's dream real. [...] Sooner, rather than later, we shall have a single currency, a single passport... Sooner, rather than later, we shall have a parliament with directly elected representatives for this new nation that we are creating today. —Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, 8 December 2004.

Step by step CAN and Mercosur will converge becoming the South American Community, but gradually disappearing at the same time. But in spite of the haste there’s no rush, because we could end with an empty declaration. [...] My idea is that in a few months time CAN should be known as South American Community-CAN and Mercosur, South American Community MS, so we have time to get in touch with the new initials. —Former Argentine president Eduardo Duhalde, president of the Mercosur Representatives Committee.

Proposed name change

On 28 December 2005, Chilean foreign minister Ignacio Walker proposed that the name of the community be changed to South American Union (Spanish: Unión Sudamericana, Portuguese: União Sul-Americana); nevertheless, many members stated to him that that proposal had already been rejected to prevent confusion related to its acronym (U.S.A.).

The name was finally changed on April 16 2007 to "Union of South American Nations" (Spanish: Unión de Naciones Suramericanas, Portuguese: União Sul-Americana de Nações), abbreviated "Unasur" in Spanish and "Unasul" in Portuguese. The new name was jointly agreed by all member states during the first day of meeting at the South American Energy Summit held at Isla Margarita, Venezuela.

References

^ "Chávez: Presidentes acordaron llamar Unasur a integración política regional" La Tercera, accesed on April 16 2007.
^ CNN
^ People in English

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Union of South American Nations

Wikinews has related news:

South American Community of Nations announced at Third South American Summit

Articles, Editorials, and Reports

Union of South American Nations (Unasur · Unasul)
Argentina · Bolivia · Brazil · Chile · Colombia · Ecuador · Guyana · Paraguay · Peru · Suriname · Uruguay · Venezuela

Topics on Supranationalism and World government
Theory	Supranationalism · Federalism · Confederation · Intergovernmentalism · Anti-nationalism · Globalization · Democratic globalization · Pax Americana
International bodies	United Nations · Interpol · International Monetary Fund · World Bank Group · World Trade Organization
Regional bodies	European Union · African Union · Union of South American Nations · Association of Southeast Asian Nations
International Parliaments	United Nations General Assembly · European Parliament · Pan-African Parliament · Latin American Parliament · Central American Parliament · Inter-Parliamentary Union
International Courts	International Criminal Court · International Court of Justice · ICTY · African Court of Justice · Central American Court of Justice · Caribbean Court of Justice · European Court of Justice · European Court of Human Rights
Law and treaties	International law (Public · Private · Supranational) · United Nations Charter · Rome Statute · Kyoto Protocol · EU Treaties · EU law
History	League of Nations · Permanent Court of International Justice · Nuremberg Trials · Permanent Court of Arbitration
Proposals & Concepts	World government · United Nations Parliamentary Assembly · Central Asian Union · Pacific Union · United States of Europe
Movements	Federal Union · World Federalist Movement · Global citizens movement · World Union
WikiProject International relations

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Donate to Wikimedia