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Address by the Foreign Minister
of Ecuador, María Isabel
Salvador,
Assumption by Ecuador of the
office of President Pro Tempore
of the CAN,
Lima, June 17, 2008
Messrs.
Ministers:
Today, Ecuador assumes the
office of President Pro Tempore
of the Andean Community with
optimism and determination
--optimism born of our intrinsic
vocation for change, renewal,
transformation, for the
continuing and indeclinable
search for a reality that will
give us all greater and more
equitable opportunities.
The current circumstances of our
integration process have imposed
a challenge upon us that we
assume with the conviction that,
for all of our countries and
peoples, Andean integration
continues to be a suitable and
mutually beneficial instrument
for addressing a wide range of
matters. Obviously, then, we
will support and undertake
action aimed at taking advantage
and making the most of this
potential for a shared and
solidary management.
We
will seek day-by-day to give
concrete expression to our
guiding principles of equity,
solidarity and joint action, so
that the opportunities we create
will be of crucial importance to
everyone. That is the
commitment to Andean integration
of the government of the
citizens’ revolution.
Ecuador assumes the position of
President Pro Tempore of the
Andean Community at a peculiar
moment in time, at both the
world and subregional levels.
The international economic scene
is evolving increasingly and
decisively toward the
progressive formation and
consolidation of large blocs;
the increased concentration of
capital and oligopolization of
markets; economic
financerization; and the growing
importance of energy, food
security and migratory issues.
At the same time, a change is
taking place in the
international political terrain,
a concentration of political,
military and technological power
in the hands of the most
developed countries, accompanied
by very weak international
cooperation, in a general
context of progressive erosion,
as a result of the failure to
observe international law.
Those situations in the economic
and political spheres give shape
to a global scenario that
demands pro active and joint
action on the part of the
developing countries in order to
not only protect their economic
interests, political autonomy
and cultural identity, but also
to participate profitably in the
process of globalization --that
is, as subjects, and not merely
objects.
At
the subregional level, the
Andean countries are pursuing
different development models
that come from dissimilar
visions determined with
sovereignty and that go far
beyond political discourse and
strategies for international
relationships and insertion.
This situation threatens to not
only bring to a stop, but also
go so far as to destroy,
accomplishments that have
required sizeable amounts of
resources and a large measure of
sacrifice on the part of all of
the CAN Member Countries,
particularly the least developed
of them.
At this juncture,
Ecuador is convinced that we
must rapidly identify, using a
pragmatic and flexible approach,
an array of common interests in
strategic areas that will
convert the Andean Community
into an
environment where
States and nations with
different projects and visions
can live together and that will
promote and reinforce the
capacity and opportunities for
integral development through
coordinated and/or joint
management, both within the
subregion and at the
international level.
Because of the wide diversity of
projects and visions among our
countries, the premises for
defining the action that will
make it possible to achieve our
common interests should be
sine qua non, in order to,
first, create and safeguard
favorable environments for the
formulation and implementation
of national policy; and second,
permit full exercise by
Community bodies of the
responsibilities and spheres of
competence attributed to them
within the framework of the
strategic areas that have been
identified.
Those premises will stem from a
management oriented toward the
general and irrevocable
standardization of policy and
instruments, together with any
vocation for the explicit
support or not of another vision
or model within the subregion.
The identification of the areas
and interests should involve the
sincere understanding and
objective coordination of the
different development models we
have assumed, in an active
effort to seek out possibilities
for or points of convergence
among them, without forcing an
integration that would
straightjacket its
participants.
Once those areas and interests
have been identified, we will
have to carry out an exercise in
their prioritization: there is
no place for “mega agendas” that
have always ended up within a
short period of time as
documentary tests of
unattainable desires. We
consider that we should define
one or two “emblematic”
projects, objectives to which
human, technical and financial
resources should be dedicated.
Messrs. Ministers:
In
the Andean Community, we have
traditionally assigned basic
importance to the task of
deepening the interdependence of
our countries, a task we have
tackled particularly from the
perspective of trade. Without
belittling its essential
contribution to any
integrationist undertaking, we
believe the time has come to
open and/or create greater
possibilities for development of
mutual understanding and
confidence-building, not only
among our countries, but also
among our societies and
peoples.
We
are convinced that action to
this effect will create a real
opportunity for deepening our
integration project and, above
all, for giving it a content
that is increasingly appropriate
for the lifestyles of our
peoples.
We
consider, then, that our project
should take a qualitative leap
from a market and
competition-driven paradigm to
“broad, multidimensional and
growing cooperation that yields
concrete results, with true
social involvement.”
Ecuador proposes that we move
ahead from the market and
competition-based paradigm to a
reality that would lead to
social participation; the
effective inclusion of women and
of indigenous and Afroandean
peoples; and more and more
cooperation.
In
short, Ecuador’s proposal
centers on recovering the Andean
Community as an “area of
coexistence for development,”
where Member Countries will find
enough versatility to see their
interests reflected and where,
at the same time, priority is
given to action that the CAN’s
existing institutional structure
and the political and economic
realities of its Member
Countries can make effectively
viable.
In
order to fuel the start of the
discussion, Ecuador proposes
that our activities target the
following strategic areas:
1.
TRADE MATTERS:
Development of the System of
Safeguards;
Implementation
and development of the
Andean System of
Standardization, Accreditation,
Testing, Certification,
Technical Regulations, and
Metrology;
Perfecting of the Dispute
Settlement System, particularly
the Sanctions Regime;
Implementation and development
of the Andean Agricultural
Health System;
Development of measures to
facilitate trade within the
subregion, including the
implementation and perfecting of
Andean customs instruments; the
facilitation of air
transportation within the
subregion and of international
transportation of goods by road;
and the boosting of the Andean
Train project.
2.
SOCIAL MATTERS:
Selective and prioritized
implementation of the projects
contained in the Integral Plan
for Social Development
(Socio-labor matters; health;
education and culture; rural
development and food security;
and social development,
including the development of
women, Afroandean peoples and
indigenous peoples);
Implementation of the Andean
Plan to Fight Corruption.
3.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:
Formulation and implementation
of the Andean Strategy on
Climate Change;
Establishment of the Andean
Institute for Biodiversity;
Development of the Andean
Information System for Disaster
Prevention and Relief and
continuation of CAPRADE and
PREDECAN.
4.
FOREIGN RELATIONS:
Development of joint positions
on THE MIGRATION PHENOMENON;
Strengthening of UNASUR
Continuation of CAN-EU
negotiations;
Deepening of our relations with
CHINA, RUSSIA, and INDIA.
Messrs. Ministers:
We
trust that we will be able to
rapidly build a truly strategic
agenda and an agenda of
prioritized activities that will
lead within the short and medium
terms to concrete results that
will benefit all of our
countries equitably and produce
better living conditions for our
peoples, ones that are more
equitable, just and solidary.
As
the Libertador stated:
“Unity will not be produced by
divine miracles, but must be
built through sensitive and
well-directed efforts.”
THANK-YOU
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