ARGENTINA: EX-VEEP ALVAREZ ON MERCOSUR, VENEZUELA, AND

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 001920 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE PASS NSC FOR MICHAEL SMART PASS FED BOARD OF GOVERNORS FOR PATRICE ROBITAILLE PASS USTR FOR KATHERINE DUCKWORTH AND MARY SULLIVAN TREASURY FOR LTRAN, MMALLOY USDOC FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/OLAC/PEACHER US SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON ETRD PREL PINR VZ AR SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: EX-VEEP ALVAREZ ON MERCOSUR, VENEZUELA, AND DOMESTIC ELECTIONS Ref: (A) Buenos Aires 1707 (B) Buenos Aires 1359 (C) Caracas 844 This cable contains sensitive information - not for internet distribution. -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Former De La Rua Administration Vice President "Chacho" Alvarez, currently serving as the President of Mercosur's Permanent Representatives Commission, sees Mercosur's current expansion agenda as a political effort to contain and manage Venezuela (protect). A Venezuela within Mercosur and subject to Mercosur's democracy clause, he said, is less likely to pursue its more ideologically driven ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) trade bloc "adventures." Mercosur continues to grapple with internal asymmetries which concentrate the bulk of foreign capital flows to Brazil and Argentina at the expense of Uruguay and Paraguay. Alvarez sees Argentina's post-economic crisis normalization being complicated by an unprecedented concentration of presidential power and a fragmented opposition that is operating outside of traditional political parties and so lacks national projection and broad legitimacy. End Summary. -------------- On Mercosur's Asymmetries and Expansion Plans -------------- ¶2. (U) On September 21 Ambassador, PolCouns, and EconCouns met with Mercosur President of the Permanent Representatives Commission (and former GoA Vice President under President De la Rua) Carlos Alberto "Chacho" Alvarez and Cabinet Chief for the Mercosur Presidency Facundo Nejamkis. Conversation focused on Argentine pre-election political dynamics and on Mercosur's ongoing expansion exercise. Please protect Alvarez's comments. ¶3. (SBU) Mercosur continues to grapple with internal asymmetries which concentrate the bulk of foreign investment into the bloc to Brazil and Argentina at the expense of smaller members Uruguay and Paraguay, Alvarez said. Uruguay's exports to Brazil, which had averaged in the $1 billion range annually in the 1990s, are now half of that level. It is not at all hard to understand then, Alvarez concluded, why Uruguay is eagerly exploring TIFA links with the U.S. ¶4. (SBU) A Mercosur internal compensation fund will distribute $50-60 million to Uruguay and Paraguay to address some of the large economy/small economy differences in productivity and productive capacity, Alvarez said. Uruguay hopes to use the bulk of its compensation fund monies to build infrastructure links, including electricity transmission lines, to Brazil. Paraguay, in contrast, is exploring the use of its share of compensation funds to develop small business capacity and productivity, particularly in the Tri-border Area. Alvarez said he had participated at a UNDP conference in New York earlier this year to explore how Mercosur could contribute to the development of smaller nation member productive capacity. ¶5. (SBU) On Mercosur's expansion to include new members Venezuela and Bolivia, Ambassador noted his own experience with the European Union was that trade bloc expansion efforts invariably divert attention from efforts to deepen current bloc disciplines. Alvarez agreed and called Mercosur's expansion agenda broadly political: it would be far easier to manage the region's relations with a fractious Venezuela embedded into Mercosur bloc disciplines. A Venezuela within Mercosur and subject to Mercosur's democracy clause, he said, was also less likely to pursue its more ideologically driven ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) trade bloc (Ref C) "adventures." Alvarez admitted that the incorporation of Venezuela's increasingly centralized economy into Mercosur's common external tariff regime would be a difficult long-term challenge. -------------- -------------- On Argentine Normalization and a Cristina Candidacy -------------- -------------- ¶6. (SBU) In the immediate aftermath of the 2001/2 economic crisis, Alvarez said, Argentina had turned inwards to recover its sense of balance and self-esteem. Five years later, Argentina has stabilized economically and politically and so a likely Cristna Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK) administration will face internal demands for a "normalization" of Argentina's relations with the international community. Part of this normalization process requires a strong opposition party to call a government to account and to keep it focused on serving the national interests. However, Alvarez emphasized, Argentina's fragmented opposition is largely "vanity-driven," party-less and so lacking in national projection and broad legitimacy. This divided opposition, combined with the unprecedented budget and patronage power that President Kirchner has concentrated at the federal level, will make this normalization process difficult, Alvarez concluded. -------------- -------------- Relations with Neighbors: Hope on Papermill Dispute -------------- -------------- ¶7. (SBU) In its international engagements, Argentina under President Nestor Kirchner has been "defensive," Alvarez said. CFK will be a more open international interlocutor than her husband has been to date, and has made clear she will engage both the USG and European Union on common interests. Alvarez speculated that President Nestor Kirchner could, after he leaves office, turn his energies to improving Argentina's regional relations with Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Argentine/Chile relations have deteriorated, he said, over Argentina's breach of natural gas delivery contracts. Argentine/Uruguay relations have similarly suffered over paper mill frictions (Ref A). With Argentina's paper mill environmental protestors losing popular support and Kirchner himself having requested Spanish conciliation efforts, "common sense" will prevail: Argentina will accept the Uruguayan paper mill as a fait accompli, demand enhanced environmental monitoring, and come to some final accord with Uruguay before the upcoming 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. -------------- Bio Note -------------- ¶8. (U) Carlos Alberto "Chacho" Alvarez, born December 26, 1948 in Buenos Aires, was Vice-President of Argentina during part of President Fernando de la Rua's mandate, and currently heads the Mercosur Commission of Permanent Representatives (CRPM). Alvarez has a degree in history from Buenos Aires University. He was a staff adviser to the Regional Economies Commission of the National Senate from 1983 to 1989. That year he was elected as National Deputy for the Justicialist Party, but he split from the party shortly afterwards because of disagreements with President Carlos Menem, creating an independent block known as The Group of the Eight. ¶9. (U) In 1991, Alvarez joined a group of politicians of different progressive parties, as well as former Justicialists, to create the Frente Grande coalition party. He was again elected congressman for the 1993-1997 period, as well as a member of the Constitutional Convention that modified the constitution in 1994, both as a member of the Frente Grande party. In 1994, he took part in the creation of the FrePaSo party. In the 1995 presidential elections, he was the vice-presidential running mate of Jose Octavio Bordon, Argentina's current Ambassador to the United States; they won second place. ¶10. (SBU) In 1997, FrePaSo joined the Union Civica Radical to form the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education (usually known as the Alianza). Alvarez was elected once again to the Chamber of Deputies, this time by the Alianza. He became vice-president in the 1999 presidential elections with Fernando de la Rua, but resigned his post on October 8, 2000, due to his disapproval of alleged administration bribes paid to the Federal Senate to approve labor law reforms. He retired from public life for five years until his appointment to Mercosur in December 2005. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Chacho Alvarez's 2000 resignation from the De La Rua administration in protest over alleged payment of bribes won him lasting credibility among some Argentine voters. His departure from De La Rua's Alianza administration only a year before the nation descended into economic and political chaos, however, has left Alvarez his share of detractors as well. Alvarez's current position heading the Mercosur PermReps' Committee is widely seen as a comfortable sinecure from which to choose the best timing and opportunity to re-enter the Argentine political mainstream. It could well be that a Cristina Kirchner administration, more open and internationally minded that that of her husband, could find some use for Alvarez's Mercosur credentials. WAYNE