The Andean Community: A Waybill to New Opportunities

According to Guillermo Gutiérrez Nieto, the Andean Community is currently at a crossroads that raises doubts as to its validity as a mechanism for economic integration and its prospects as a key actor in north-south cooperation. He believes that this regional trade bloc has been tangled up in a web of agreements, commitments and decisions that have determined its internal workings since the signing of the Cartagena Agreement in Colombia in 1969 through to the withdrawal of Venezuela in April of 2006. After summing up the progress the Andean Community has made and the obstacles it has encountered, the author notes that it now has an opportunity to reclaim its place as the leader of the continent’s integration movements: the time has come to identify and reflect on the missing pieces required to consummate the cherished goal of an expanded economic trade bloc. In Nieto’s opinion, Mexico —currently an observer on the Andean Presidential Council— plays a decisive role within the Andean Community and should take better advantage of its alliance with member countries to identify programs of collective action that work to its benefit. One example of this is the upcoming APEC meeting in Peru in 2008, which affords an excellent opportunity to analyze a possible tripartite alliance between the Andean Community, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, a platform on which our country indubitably enjoys a privileged position and that would enable us to present a united front capable of taking on the Asian market.