Terme de Glossaire

Mercosur (from the Spanish Mercado Commún del Sur) is the economic community of the countries of South America. Created on 26th March, 1991, by the Treaty of Asuncion (Paraguay), it is the world’s third integrated market after the European Union and NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Association. Its objectives are the free circulation of goods, services and production factors, and the creation of a common external customs tariff, but also the convergence of economic policies and the harmonisation of legislation between member states. Mercosur thus has the aim of becoming a co-operation tool which is far more integrated than NAFTA, a simple free exchange area which has no desire for political bridge-building. Mercosur’s permanent members (making up a population of around of 260 million inhabitants) are Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and, since 2006, Venezuela, whose membership has yet to be definitively ratified by all the other member states. Mercosur has permitted important progress in developing exchanges and consolidating democracy, notably due to the fact that the installation of a dictatorship following a military coup d’état would expose the country concerned to being excluded. But co-operation still suffers from the area’s relative poverty, even if it is less flagrant than in the rest of Latin America, and above all from economic and political rivalry between the two largest member countries, Brazil and Argentina. Five countries (Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador) are already associate partners of Mercosur, whose ambition is the progressive economic and political integration of the whole of South America. It could even be extended to other Latin American countries: Mexico and Panama, for example, have already expressed an interest. Mercosur has concluded free trade agreements with India and four small southern African countries. Since 1995, it has been linked by an inter-regional co-operation agreement with the European Union, and the two zones are looking to create a common free trade area.