In the forum
Representatives from Mercosur and the European Union (EU) met today in Buenos Aires to discuss the possible implementation of European cohesion funds in South America, government sources reported.
The forum "Cohesion Funds for the development of Mercosur" includes the head of the Mercosur Representatives Commission, Carlos Chacho Álvarez, and co-organizer of the event; the Argentine Minister of Labor, Carlos Tomada; the Spanish Secretary of State for the EU, Alberto Navarro; and legislators and officials from Europe.
"South America is experiencing a historic opportunity, because we are freed from the urgencies of other times and now there is a current of democracy throughout the region, economic growth and center-left governments that allow us today for the first time to think in strategic terms," Álvarez stated at the inauguration.
"All countries are searching for and developing national models that seek to reconcile economic growth, the quality of democracy, and social justice. Models that are inclusive within our societies and competitive externally," he added.
In that regard, he pointed out the "importance of that great laboratory that is the EU, especially in its strategic policies of social and productive cohesion."
"It is clear from European experience that cohesion funds serve to reduce the differences between economies at different stages of development and to achieve economic growth in all countries," he stated.
Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, with Venezuela in the process of joining) has had a Structural Convergence Fund (Focem) since 2006, which has an annual endowment of 100 million dollars for infrastructure projects and the elimination of development asymmetries between the bloc's partners.
In addition, the bloc agreed last June to create a common fund to support SMEs, whose structure will be designed by the Common Market Group (GMC), the bloc's technical body.
Spain's Secretary of State for the EU, Alberto Navarro, gave a historical overview of European cohesion funds and stated that these "allowed Spain in just 20 years to go from being a backward economy to one of the leading economies in the world."
Navarro championed the Europe-Latin America alliance, as they are "the only two regions on the planet that share the same world vision" and stressed that "outside of that unprecedented experience in world history that is the European Union, only one bloc with similar characteristics is under construction in the world and that is Mercosur."
The EU and the South American bloc have been negotiating a political and trade association agreement since 1999
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