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| SELA Aims for Bigger Role in Regional Integration By Humberto Márquez Caracas, Dec 22 (IPS) - The Latin American Economic System (SELA) wants to help draw the roadmap for continental integration, now that most of its 27 member countries are moving full speed ahead towards a major economic, trade and political alliance. "SELA wants to play not only an active role but a decisive one in the architecture and convergence of integration schemes, which have entered a particularly dynamic stage this year," Venezuelan economist Roberto Guarnieri, the permanent secretary of SELA, told IPS. In recent years, "SELA has lagged behind somewhat," Guarnieri admitted. Today, however, it is determined to "develop all of the potential and assets it has developed as a forum with unanimous political backing in the region for 30 years," he said. SELA was established through the Panama Convention of 1975, based on an initiative put forward by Mexico and Venezuela, with the goal of promoting regional cooperation and coordinating common international economic positions and strategies in Latin America and the Caribbean. For many years, it stood out as the only regional forum that accepted Cuba as a full member, even in the midst of the Cold War, and included the socialist Caribbean nation's government in its discussions and economic cooperation programmes. SELA was a forum for intense debate over the foreign debt crisis that struck the region in the 1980s, which consequently came to be called "the lost decade". It also coordinated regional economic cooperation when Nicaragua, forced to combat the U.S.-sponsored "contra" fighters, and Argentina, at war with Britain over control of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, were subjected to embargos imposed by outside economic powers. Now the region is entering a phase of accelerated integration, and "SELA can serve as a think tank and a platform for assembling the institutional, technical and legal architecture essential for the convergence of the various integration systems in Latin America and the Caribbean," said Guarnieri. In fact, at the last meeting of the Latin American Council - the highest authority within SELA, comprised of ministerial representatives - the decision was adopted to change the name of the organisation to the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System, or SELAC, to stress the fact that it encompasses the entire region. The current member countries are Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. The last Latin American Council meeting was held on the eve of the summit in the southern Peruvian city of Cuzco that gave rise to the creation of the South American Community of Nations, on Dec. 8. The South American leaders meeting in Peru instructed their foreign ministers to prepare a plan of action with the help of integration bodies already operating in the region, and adopted proposals for integration with the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico alongside the creation of the new community. For its part, SELA has designed a working agenda for 2005 aimed at supporting regional integration processes, promoting stronger economic ties among the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, and facilitating the convergence of current integration schemes. One of the first projects it will pursue involves the creation of a database and preparation of a study on the region's macroeconomic indicators, to be followed by a meeting of experts and a report containing proposals for convergence policies, in October. Other initiatives include a detailed overview of the various integration processes and the secretariats of the systems established in the region, such as the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), Southern Common Market (Mercosur), Caribbean Community (Caricom) and Central American Common Market, for use at the Latin American Council meeting scheduled for late 2005. The meeting, to be held in Panama City, will commemorate the 30th anniversary of SELA's founding, and will decide upon the "relaunching" of the organisation within the new architecture of regional integration, according to Costa Rican SELA representative Walter Hernández. "A definitive decision could be reached regarding the end or survival of SELA as a mechanism for Latin American and Caribbean integration," said Hernández. "This will depend on the commitment and political and economic will of its members," he added. One of the main challenges currently facing SELA is an acute financial crisis. Almost all of its members are significantly behind in their quota payments, leaving the organisation with a deficit of between 10 and 11 million dollars. "If the members paid just 25 percent of what they owe, we could carry out the work scheduled for 2005," Guarnieri said. SELA's working schedule for the coming year includes studies and high-level meetings on trade and investment flows in the region, and economic and social policies within the framework of integration, such as the role of higher education in regional unity processes. The group will also work on developing the International Humanitarian Fund, based on a proposal from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, along with regional technical cooperation and the role of small and medium-sized businesses, a particularly high priority. "We are in an accelerated process of creating a new regional institutional infrastructure," said Guarnieri. "SELA should have participated more actively. But we can still be for this region what the European Commission is to the European Union - the body that incubates the administrative and political structure for a nascent Latin American and Caribbean Union."
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http://www.sela.org |