HOW MERCOSUR HAS CHANGED

RR RUEHWEB DE RUEHMN #1097/01 3201331 ZNY CCCCC ZZH R 161331Z NOV 06 FM AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6543 INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 0459 RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ NOV SANTIAGO 2938 RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC ,C O N F I D E N T I A L MONTEVIDEO 001097 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/BSC AND EB/TPP DEPT PASS USTR TREASURY FOR OASIA FOR HOEK COMMERCE FOR ITA/MAC/BASTIAN NSC FOR FISK AND CARDENAS SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2016 TAGS: ETRD ECON PREL AORC SOCI UY SUBJECT: HOW MERCOSUR HAS CHANGED REF: A. MONTEVIDEO 567 ¶B. MONTEVIDEO 465 ¶C. MONTEVIDEO 448 ¶D. MONTEVIDEO 254 Classified By: James D. Nealon, Charge d'Affaires, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary and Introduction: This telegram contains a healthy dose of subjective analysis designed to stimulate constructive debate on an issue of regional importance. The Embassy is keenly interested in Mercosur, not only because its headquarters are located here, but also because we have detected a growing impact on Uruguay by that organization. Over the past couple of years, Mercosur has evolved from a benign trading bloc into a political union with a robust foreign policy agenda. More often than not, this agenda has clashed with some USG objectives -- particularly since Venezuela became its fifth member. A prime example of Mercosur's politicization was manifested by its unflinching support for Venezuela's bid for a semi-permanent seat on the UNSC. Earlier examples include Mercosur's anti-FTAA posture at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata and the 2005 accord binding members not to sign Article 98 agreements with the U.S. The unpredictability of two Mercosur leaders (Argentina's Nestor Kirchner and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) have further complicated Mercosur politics. There's been recent talk about bringing Bolivia into the bloc, adding the fiery Evo Morales into the Mercosur mix. We note that Mercosur fully intends to install a functioning Parliament at Montevideo in March 2007. ¶2. (C) While Mercosur's exterior veneer portrays an image of tight cohesion on political integration and foreign policy, severe disputes and backstabbing frequently occur behind the scenes. In particular, Uruguay has been the victim of Mercosur's lack of solidarity. The bitter pulp mill dispute with Argentina, in which the GOA has used perceived dirty tactics to pummel the GOU into submission, and the manifest lack of interest on the part of Brazil have elicited comments here such as, ""with friends like this, who needs enemies?"" It is also widely believed here that both Brazil and Argentina vetoed Uruguay's hope as the compromise candidate for the Latin American UNSC seat. Neither Chavez nor Lula showed up at the recent Ibero-American Summit in Montevideo #¿NOMBRE? Kirchner did a fly-by appearance and did not meet with President Vazquez. Our GOU contacts, including Presidential Chief of Staff Gonzalo Fernandez, have shared with us Vazquez's frustration about Argentine and Brazilian resistance to Uruguayan efforts to negotiate an FTA with the U.S. Our MFA contacts increasingly answer our demarches with what they say is ""the Mercosur position."" ¶3. (C) Finally, Mercosur's trade agenda can be assessed as little more than a failure. The 4 1 process with the U.S. is all but dead. (In any case, should it now be called 5 1, with the addition of Venezuela?) Trade talks with the EU are also at a standstill, and all that Mercosur has been able to accomplish of late are modest South-South framework agreements. A Common External Tariff (CET) with more ""holes"" than substance and the increased propensity of Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela to deal bilaterally without consulting their smaller partners are further evidence of Mercosur's unsatisfactory trade policy. In light of these developments, a re-examination of our overall relationship with Mercosur may be warranted. End Summary and Introduction. A strengthened political footprint -------------- ¶4. (C) The entry of Venezuela has clearly altered the power balance and dynamics within Mercosur. A prime example was Mercosur's unflinching support for Venezuela's UNSC seat bid. For more than 50 successive votes, Mercosur members continued to support Venezuela's candidacy. Mercosur solidarity held fast...to a point. When Uruguay was mentioned as a possible compromise candidate, Argentina is said to have vetoed the move and Brazil was reportedly not supportive. In recent months, we have also noted a distinct tendency for our MFA colleagues to emphasize that the GOU's foreign policy is being coordinated with Mercosur. FM Gargano is sycophantic to Venezuela and publicly took credit for fast-tracking Venezuela into Mercosur. ¶5. (C) It is widely believed that the GOB's strategy for embracing Venezuela into Mercosur was that Chavez could better be controlled from within the organization than if left to his own devices on the outside. It appears, however, that Chavez has proved to be more difficult to contain than originally thought. He has openly challenged the Brazilians by supporting and allegedly encouraging Evo Morales's move to grab Petrobras' assets in Bolivia, and has frequently stolen the stage at Mercosur from Brazil's President Lula. ¶6. (C) While Lula is widely perceived to have lost some regional leadership to Chavez, it is unclear whether this will continue to be the case after Lula was re-elected with a robust margin. It also remains to be seen if the relationship between Lula and Chavez will be ONE of competition for leadership or if we will see the emergence of another bilateral axis similar to the ONE between Argentina and Brazil. Who will lead Mercosur is open to question. Brazil's pro tempore presidency, ending in December, has been characterized by inaction, as was expected (ref A). The GOB consistently avoided mediation or to even express an opinion in the divisive pulp mill dispute between Argentina and Uruguay. Chief of Staff Fernandez told Charge that Lula missed the Summit in part so he would not have to show his cards on the papermill issue. Brazil recently proposed a postponement of the Mercosur Summit scheduled for December 15 in Brasilia until January 2007. This delay is read in Uruguay as a way for the GOB to come up with face-saving devices in order to counter the perceptions of a lack of progress on economic integration during Brazil's presidency. ¶7. (C) Political integration continues apace, however. On November 1, as a prelude to the Ibero-American Summit, Uruguay became the first Mercosur country to ratify Venezuela's entry into the bloc, when the lower House ratified the protocol of admission in a special emergency session at 3:00 a.m. The opposition complained that the motion had been rammed through the House without adequate consideration in Commission. The opposition later had a field day ridiculing the Frente Amplio's ""servile act"", when Chavez failed to show up at the Ibero-American Summit in Montevideo to receive this ""gift"" (Chavez sent $20 million funding for a public hospital as a consolation prize.) ¶8. (C) The Mercosur Parliament will be launched in March 2007 in Montevideo and is expected to meet on a monthly basis. Until 2010, it will be composed of 18 members per country chosen by national parliaments. Starting in 2011, members will be popularly elected within each country and representation will be proportional, with criteria still to be determined. While the Mercosur Parliament's authority is still unclear, its creation is definitely a first step towards political integration for Mercosur members and is likely to facilitate common policies on external affairs. The Parliament's authority is likely to be limited at first, given that both Brazil and Uruguay require constitutional amendments to permit for supranationality. ¶9. (C) Other political initiatives have emerged. A Mercosur Social Institute and a Democracy Observatory were created at the Cordoba Summit in July 2006. A presidential declaration signed in Asuncion in June 2005 exhorted all Mercosur members not to sign any agreements susceptible to affect the jurisdiction of the International Crimminal Court (ICC),in effect prohibiting them from signing Article 98 agreements with the U.S. As for political propaganda, Chavez's Telesur TV channel is already broadcasting in Uruguay. As for Chavez's calls for a Mercosur common defense policy and joint military forces, we had presumed they were going nowhere, but press reports on Lula's recent visit to Caracas indicate that he may now support Chavez's idea. Economic integration takes a back seat -------------- ¶10. (C) Meanwhile, economic integration has taken a back seat. What we are seeing is increased bilateralism by the larger members at the expense of smaller countries. The Competitive Adaptation Mechanism (or MAC, for its Spanish acronym) between Argentina and Brazil, for example, was perceived in Uruguay as a significant move backwards for economic integration. Approved in January 2006, this bilateral safeguard mechanism is viewed by the GOU and the Uruguayan private sector as inconsistent with Mercosur rules. ¶11. (C) Mercosur's Technical Secretariat had always been the GOU's pet project and its creation in ex-Foreign Minister Didier Opperti's times had been trumpeted as an Uruguayan success. According to our contacts within the Secretariat, their relationship with the foreign and trade ministries of Argentina and Brazil have become increasingly tense. They say they are being sidelined and their reports are increasingly being tagged as restricted or confidential, so as to avoid wide diffusion. They also note that the elimination of adequate independent technical studies would leave the larger countries -which can allot more resources to Mercosur- in a relatively much stronger position vis--vis the smaller ones. ¶12. (C) While the lowering of trade barriers was the original justification for Mercosur's existence, the Common External Tariff (CET) is still far from being a reality. In fact, it can be argued that the numerous exceptions make for a much larger hole than the CET itself (the hole is so massive that the ""doughnut"" itself is practically non-existent). Only about $30 billion of the $80 billion of extra-zone imports are subject to the CET (or 38% of the total),and only $8 billion (or 10% of total imports) actually pay effective duties within the CET. That is to say that 62% of all extra-zone imports are exempted from the CET, either through national or sectoral exceptions, or in their majority through special processing zones, such as the Manaus Free Trade Zone in Brazil or the Tierra de Fuego FTZ in Argentina. In addition, 22% of extra-zone imports enjoy a zero tariff. These figures illustrate the fallacy of the oft-stated argument (in particular from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry) that an FTA between Uruguay and the U.S. would have been incompatible with the CET. This reluctance to allow Uruguay some leeway in its trade talks with the U.S. was ONE of the reasons for the GOU's excruciating search for an acceptable name to give to what would essentially have been an FTA. ¶13. (C) Mercosur itself has lost relevance as an export market for its members. Intra-bloc exports amount to $20 billion, up from their 2002 low of $10 billion, but down significantly as a percentage of total trade. Exports to Mercosur as a percentage of total exports dropped from 34% in 1998 to 13% in 2002, accounting for just about 14% in 2005. The need for individual members -in particular the smaller countries- to open up to the rest of the world through bilateral trade agreements has become increasingly acute. In this sense, Uruguay has led the way. It is the only Mercosur member to have negotiated a full-fledged FTA with Mexico, as a result of a Mercosur framework agreement with Mexico. ¶14. (C) Intra-zone trade flows never were positive for Uruguay. Even at the best of times, when Mercosur absorbed about half of its exports, Uruguay had a trade deficit with the bloc. In fact, both Uruguay and Paraguay have suffered chronic trade deficits with Mercosur. Mercosur now absorbs only about a quarter of Uruguay's exports, about the same amount as NAFTA does. The trend is clearly for a growing share of Uruguay's trade going extra-zone, but the GOU fears that its competitive advantages with the U.S. will be eroded by our FTAs with the rest of the hemisphere. For the GOU, it only makes sense to join the FTA bandwagon, and a solid majority of the population would approve of an FTA with the U.S., according to the latest surveys (54 percent in favor, 14 percent opposed.) An unsuccessful and confused trade policy -------------- ¶15. (C) Venezuela's full membership in Mercosur is likely to hamper the bloc's ability to negotiate trade deals. It also makes it very difficult for the U.S. to re-initiate the moribund 4 1 dialogue, as a 5 1 with Venezuela appears highly unlikely and has already complicated negotiations with the EU. The latest technical meeting between Mercosur and the EU on November 6-8 ended up in an impasse. Meanwhile, Venezuela is moving ahead with ALBA, its alternative to the FTAA. ALBA's members are so far Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba, which act in coordinated fashion in ALADI. ¶16. (C) Mercosur's rigid positions, dictated mostly from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, have prevented the bloc from reaching agreements with the developed markets of the U.S. and the EU. All that Mercosur has been able to accomplish over the past 2-3 years are South-South agreements, with Egypt, Morocco, India, Pakistan and South Africa (Israel being the exception). Though these initiatives would appear to indicate an active trade policy, they are mostly lightweight framework agreements, which reflect mostly Brazil's interests rather than those of the trade bloc as a whole. ¶17. (C) While Mercosur did negotiate some broader free trade agreements, these generally pre-dated the ""new"" Mercosur that is now emerging. Mercosur negotiated FTAs with Chile and Bolivia in 1996 and 1997 and set up an umbrella covering a net of bilateral agreements between individual members of Mercosur and the Andean Community (CAN). In these negotiations with the Andean Community, Mercosur gave up much more in terms of duty-free access than CAN did in return. Brazil appears to have been the most generous and Argentina the most protectionist. These inter-connected agreements between CAN and Mercosur could result in a South American FTA by 2015, if ALADI's schedules are not modified or delayed (modifications and delays are likely, though, given Mercosur's record on exceptions, ""adjustment mechanisms"", and the like.) Comment: Review USG policy towards Mercosur? -------------- ¶18. (C) The increased politicization of Mercosur, its many initiatives opposed to USG interests and its changing composition (now including Venezuela and perhaps soon Bolivia) argue in favor of a review of our policy towards the bloc. At the very least, the recent developments merit increased awareness of Mercosur's evolution and intentions. It is clearly not the same benign trading zone it was just a few years ago, and its leadership appears increasingly at odds with US interests. Among the issues to keep an eye on: To what extent does Brazil still call the shots in Mercosur and how much influence does Chavez exert on Mercosur policy-making? Embassy welcomes input on these subjects from the Department and relevant posts in the region. End Comment. Nealon