Government showed that it renewed its regional agenda – 05/31/2023 – Maria Hermínia Tavares

Promoted by President Lula, the meeting of South American leaders, on Tuesday (30), marks the country’s return to the regional political sphere, after the isolation imposed by Jair Bolsonaro. Here’s a good opportunity to review past experiences that shouldn’t be repeated.

In the past, the line adopted by PT governments was based on three pillars: trade integration through Mercosur; physical integration with IIRSA (Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure) and political concertation with Unasur (Union of South American Nations). Its objectives are to encourage inter-regional trade, increase connections in transport and energy networks and maintain peace, dialogue and a degree of autonomy from the United States.

The results, however, were disappointing: in addition to growing slightly, intraregional flows lost importance for each country’s exchanges with China; there was a lack of resources for multinational infrastructure projects; and, unfortunately, the entry of Brazilian heavy construction companies in the neighborhood produced major corruption scandals.

Dialogue was at the mercy of political alignments between governments, only to founder once and for all when left-wing presidents were replaced by right-wing ones.

Unasur, founded in 2008, was the only one of the three pillars established during the PT period. Lula’s proposal to revive it has now met with resistance from countries that have criticized its narrow politicization.

Rebuilding a forum for dialogue will thus depend on avoiding what made it unfeasible and on seeking out what might make a new concertation initiative relevant. Making it a space where all States can fit, whatever the political orientations of the respective governors in turn, is the first step. Transforming it into an arena for the discussion of important and unifying regional themes must be followed closely. Finally, in an area of ​​periodic political turmoil, it will be crucial to create incentives for its members to respect democratic rules.

From Brazil, the challenge demands a pragmatic foreign policy that includes all countries in the region; contained, to prevent the display of political sympathies for this or that government that tomorrow may be replaced by its opponent; unequivocal in defense of the sustainable economy and the regime of freedoms.

Lula’s speech at the opening of the Brasília meeting showed his government’s adherence to a renewed regional agenda. Out of time and out of place —indeed, unacceptable— were, however, his warm welcome to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

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