Lula gathers his South American counterparts to devise a new integration framework

The rulers of South America meet on Tuesday at Brasilia in which the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva It is presented as a “retreat” to reactivate the integration of a region with ideological breakdowns and internal crises.

With the exception of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, all the heads of state, ten in total, have confirmed their attendance and will begin arriving in the Brazilian capital on Monday for this first high-level regional meeting in almost a decade.

The Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, will travel to Brazil, after he was prevented by the far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).

But the Brazilian government He has not yet announced whether Lula will hold a bilateral meeting with Maduro or with one of the other invited leaders.

The event will take place mainly in the Itamaraty Palace, an architectural jewel surrounded by water designed by Oscar Niemeyer and headquarters of the Foreign Ministry.

After being received one by one by Lula, the presidents will meet in two sessions -first with individual pronouncements and then for an informal debate-, followed by dinner at Alvorada, the official residence of the Brazilian president.

All discussions will be behind closed doors and a final statement with a common position is not yet guaranteed.

Without a pre-established agenda and with a reduced format -only the presidents, their foreign ministers and some advisers will be in the room-, the idea of ​​the “withdrawal” proposed by Lula is that the countries can frankly discuss common problems.

It will give the date an air “out of stock”, “with as much conversation as possible”said a foreign ministry source.

According to Gisela Maria FiguereidoBrazilian secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, the meeting will have three objectives.

The first two are “resume dialogue” to look for one “common vision” and agree a cooperation agenda on issues such as health, infrastructure, energy, the environment and combating organized crime.

For example, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira gave impetus last week to the call “bioceanic corridor”, an initiative to move cargo between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and they’ve been arguing for years Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia.

The third goal seems more complicated: finding a way for a new South American integration mechanism.

Beyond Unasur

A meeting between the South American leaders had not occurred since 2014 in Quito, during the Unasur summit, the instance created six years earlier by Lula (2003-2010) and the Venezuelan Hugo Chávez during the first wave of leftist governments.

But after a conservative turn at the polls, a Brazil under political instability after the impeachment by Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the disagreements between countries due to the Venezuelan crisis, the regional block was practically paralyzed, without a budget and without a headquarters.

Currently only seven of the twelve members of Unasur are still in the organization (Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela and Peru -who never abandoned it-, in addition to Brazil and Argentina, who returned this year).

The Brazilian government does not rule out, however, that the new entity be built from scratch.

“We hope to start a dialogue among all to once again have an inclusive, effective and permanent consultation mechanism that can be above the guidelines of the governments on duty”Vieira said this week.

For Jason Marczak, of the Atlantic Council in Washington, the quote “It is potentially a first attempt by Lula to see what can be achieved” in South American integration.

“Lula is looking for how to do” May your third presidency serve to “to further insert Brazil as a leader and advance a wide variety of global issues”he claimed.

But without previous technical discussions between the countries, the meeting will be “merely symbolic”says Eduardo Mello, an internationalist from the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

“There are structural problems, the region has been going through political and economic crises for more than a decade, and the main South American economic development projects have failed.“, said.

“They are structural factors that are not resolved with will, by talking.”

Source: AFP