Latin America coming of age?: German Chancellor Angela Merkel with

Brazil Prime Minister Dilma Rousseff at a summit meeting between the

European Union and the Community of Latin American States, Jan. 26.

CELAC and the E.U.: Sarcasm in the Press and Winds of Change (El Mostrador, Chile)

"Let us get used to the idea that ... it is possible to create wide-ranging hemispheric forums without the United States and Canada. ... Despite all the sarcasm in the press, CELAC is quite clearly not doing such a bad job, particularly when countries like the United States, Japan and China all call for observer status at its summits. Requests that have ultimately been rejected, and which demonstrate just how glaring are the winds of change since the traditionally-weak countries dared to challenge the powerful."

By Carlos Monge*

Translated By Neus Coll Ruiz

February 7, 2013

Chile - El Mostrador - Original Article (Spanish)

A protester holds a sign with Venezuela President Chavez during a march for the 'People's Summit,' organized by social groups during the second summit of the Community of Latin American, Caribbean States in Santiago, Jan 25. The sign says, 'Keep up together, Keep up the revolution.' EURONEWS, BRUSSELS: CELAC-E.U. summit opens to demonstrations in Santiago, Chile, Jan. 26, 00:01:00

Yes, it's true, no summit will change the world. ... but there is nothing bad about leaders of different countries holding face-to-face meetings where they can say what needs to be said beyond the bounds of protocol and good manners.

Santiago de Chile just hosted not one, but two summits. The second summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (the first was in Caracas in December 2011) and the CELAC-E.U. summit, where Europe, which is so far the biggest foreign investor in the region albeit closely followed by China, sat at the table with the Latin American and Caribbean Community.

These types of meetings come in for a mixture of disdain and mockery from media like the Financial Times, which didn't miss the chance to poke fun at the expense of inconsistencies which, in the opinion of that newspaper, were present in almost all agenda items discussed at the two summit meetings.

In an editorial entitled Silly in Chile, the FT mocked the fact that Raul Castro was named the group's president pro-tempore, which, the newspaper noted, "would be comical if it wasn't so tragic," since Cuba is certainly not the image of a classical-style liberal democracy.

Another reading or perspective on the same subject is offered by European political leaders like Angela Merkel or Mariano Rajoy, who would surely not accept the task of crossing the Atlantic for such irrelevant or rhetorical engagements. This is especially true, considering that domestically, in the throes of a crisis that is proving hard to tame, they don't have it easy.

It is curious, indeed, that at its foundational event, an organization like CELAC united two countries with such divergent foreign policies as Mexico and Venezuela, and low expectation Brazil - which didn't encouraged CELAC, nor put any obstacles in its path. And CELAC continues to consolidate. Let us get used to the idea that, given the above facts, it is possible to create a wide-ranging hemispheric forum without the United States and Canada.

At the end, naturally enough, each country addresses its own game and looks to expand its own possibilities. Thus, the host country's president, Sebastian Piñera, seeks to achieve in the field of foreign policy the stature of a statesman that has proven so elusive at home. And this, despite the strong positive numbers in economic affairs that his finance minister so proudly displays.

Moreover, along with delivering the post of CELAC president to his counterpart, Cuban communist Raul Castro, Piñera took the opportunity to deploy a kind of Plan B in regard to integration called the Pacific Alliance. Despite his insistent comments that the alliance is mainly economic, it is increasingly apparent that the Alliance's ideological free market bias is aimed at counterbalancing the power of UNASUR [the Union of South American Nations] and therefore, Brazil and the Atlantic states.

In other matters, Argentina is again agitating for recognition of its claim over the Malvinas [Falklands]. Bolivia, through Evo Morales, is doing the same with his country, which is landlocked by Chile, which holds the only solution to Bolivia's confinement. Meanwhile, Spain stresses the need to ensure "legal security" for investments, especially after some missteps, and seeks to ensure the return of profits to banks and phone companies, which would bring relief to their headquarters in Europe.

Nevertheless, even if CELAC cannot be called a homogeneous bloc in terms of macroeconomic variables, industrial policy or development strategies, the unusualness of this bi-regional summit shows Latin America to be one of the more dynamic and "healthy" in the global economy. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, the Old World remains anchored to the effects of a prolonged crisis, which, together with the serial destruction of jobs, has left European self-esteem pretty bruised.

One thing to watch is how much fruit "Euroscepticism" bears, both on the right and the left. On the one hand, Britain's Tories are threatening (if Cameron is reelected, which is uncertain, of course) to entirely disengage from the European Union. And at the other end of the political spectrum - in Greece and the other PIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Spain) - there is a resistance to the idea of a homogenized Union led by German banks.

These centrifugal forces, combined with the revival of a more xenophobic nationalism and an unemployment rate in, for example, Spain, which in percentage terms is similar to the Weimar Republic that preceded fascism in Germany, tend to lead to the perception that the laborious process of building the European Union could crumble at any time.

In fact, a motley group of intellectuals which includes authorities such as Umberto Eco, Claudio Magris, Salman Rushdie, Bernard-Henri Levy and Fernando Savater, just published a manifesto that states firmly that "Europe is not in crisis - it is dying. Europe not as a territory, of course. But Europe as an idea. Europe as a dream, and as a project."



SEE ALSO ON THIS:

El Universal, Venezuela:

NRC Handlesblad, The Netherlands:

La Jornada, Mexico:

El Tiempo, Colombia:

La Razon, Bolivia:

El Espectador, Colombia:

El Universal, Venezuela:

El Tiempo, Colombia:

Estadao, Brazil:

La Razon, Bolivia:

ABC, Spain:

Folha, Brazil:

La Jornada, Mexico:

La Jornada, Mexico:

O Globo, Brazil:

Clarin, Argentina:

Le Figaro, France:

Semana, Colombia:

It goes on, without mincing words: "They used to say: socialism or barbarism. Today we must say: political union or barbarism. Or more precisely: federalism or disintegration, and in the madness of the breakup, social regression, insecurity, soaring unemployment, and poverty. Or more precisely: either Europe takes yet another decisive step toward political integration, or proceeds out of history and into chaos. We no longer have a choice: It is political union or death."

The prognosis sounds harsh for an integration project that began with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, and concluded, for the most part, with the creation of a common currency, the euro, which entered into force on January 1, 2002.

Next to this pessimistic present, we have a CELAC free of the perennial adjustment policies of the World Bank and IMF, and with neo-Keynesian countercyclical measures, is able to incorporate most of the great sectors of consumption. Precisely, it is the antagonistic version of the prescriptions that apply in Europe, where tax cuts appear to be additional wounds on an exhausted and dying body.

Despite all the sarcasm in the press, CELAC is quite clearly not doing such a bad job, particularly when countries like the United States, Japan and China all call for observer status at its summits. Requests that have ultimately been rejected, and which demonstrate just how glaring are the winds of change since the traditionally-weak countries dared to challenge the powerful.

*Carlos Monge is a journalist and international analyst

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Posted By Worldmeets.US Feb. 7, 2013, 9:55pm