ISDS Case Map
CAN
Andean Community
Peruvian society, and what is worse, most politicians in the Andean countries, do not seem to have adequately grasped the reach of FTAs with the United States, and tend to evaluate them in purely commercial terms.
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Venezuela may return to the Andean Community, or CAN, because leftist leaders in Bolivia and Ecuador who have resisted free trade deals with the United States could help to transform the regional trade bloc.
The Bolivian Deputy Minister of Economic Relations and Foreign Trade Pablo Guzman said that his country will demand sovereignty of natural resources, public services and intellectual property in its negotiations with the European Union.
Negotiators from the four CAN nations -- Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia -- and from the EU will meet all week in Bogota to talk about goals, procedures, timetables and negotiation terms.
Chavez warns CAN to reject a free-trade agreement with the European Union (EU) as unacceptable in the present circumstances. The Bolivian President has told Chavez that he agrees and cannot accept the free-trade agreement with the EU.
The Bolivian government is committing “commercial suicide,” said the Bolivian chamber of exporters, saying it was “one of the most unfortunate steps in the recent history of integration.” Yet all the Bolivian Government had done was explain that, in negotiations for an Association Agreement with the European Union, it was not prepared to negotiate away State control on issues of intellectual property, state purchases or procurement, international arbitration of investments and public services.
Bolivia's willingness to bend its anti-globalization stance allowed Andean leaders work out a common stand on a trade deal with the European Union at a summit here Thursday.
Ecuadorian chancellor, Maria Fernanda Espinosa affirmed that her country will mediate differences within the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) prior to the upcoming summit.
The movements and social organizations of Bolivia, countries of the Andean region and of Latin America feel deeply concerned about the consequences that an Association Agreement between the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) and the European Union (EU) could have for our peoples, which in its trade component includes a Free Trade Agreement, very similar to the FTAA (ALCA) that we buried only recently.
European trade with Latin America will grow as a result of growing interest among companies on each side of the Atlantic, as will European investment in the region, which is already growing significantly. And while free trade agreements with Central America and the Andean Community will help boost EU trade with Latin America, the big prize is Mercosur.
