Lima – The Peruvian government announced that as of August 1st, it will assume the pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance. This should have happened earlier this year, but public confrontations between President Dina Boluarte and her Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose country held the leadership of the trade bloc that includes Colombia and Chile, prevented it. What is the Pacific Alliance? It is a regional initiative whose members are Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. It also has four countries in the process of joining: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and Ecuador. Additionally, it has over forty nations as observers, including the United States, Argentina, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The Lima Declaration, signed on April 28th, 2011, was the agreement for the foundation of the Pacific Alliance. «To encourage regional integration, as well as greater growth, development, and competitiveness of the economies of its countries, while committing to progressively advance towards the goal of achieving the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people,» was part of the declaration. Over these months, López Obrador refused to transfer the presidency of the alliance to Boluarte because he did not recognize her as the president of Peru. López Obrador openly continues to support former President Pedro Castillo, who has been held in preventive custody in a Lima prison for 18 months for promoting a failed coup d’état in December 2022 against the Parliament, which ultimately removed him from office. The conflict escalated because Colombian President Gustavo Petro also took the same position as López Obrador and questioned Boluarte’s legitimacy. In response, Chilean leader Gabriel Boric had to intervene as an intermediary in the matter and succeeded, as they announced that they received the presidency of the Pacific Alliance that rightfully belonged to Peru and that they will return it in a month. This gesture was highlighted by the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement. «The agreement reached reflects the political will to continue betting on Latin American integration, which favors dialogue, economic-commercial exchange, cooperation, and international insertion,» they said. However, experts consulted by Voice of America maintain that the change in the leadership of the Pacific Alliance does not guarantee that the diplomatic impasses between Boluarte, López Obrador, and Petro will end. Political deterioration Former chancellor and internationalist Miguel Rodríguez Mackay pointed out to VOA that the Pacific Alliance is on a concerning path that could endanger the political and commercial nature of this bloc. «There is a lack of vocation to maintain the stability of the most successful mechanism of deep integration in the Pacific,» he said. The expert criticized López Obrador for wanting to negatively impact the Pacific Alliance by not directly handing over the presidency to Peru and temporarily giving it to Chile. In his opinion, the government of Dina Boluarte should not have accepted this triangulation because it would predict the obstacles that the leader of Morena would pose in the coming months. «He will keep diminishing the legitimacy of Dina Boluarte as the president of the Republic by calling her a ‘usurper’ because she will not attend any meeting she convenes as the president of the Pacific Alliance,» he explained. Furthermore, Rodríguez Mackay assured that this stance could also be adopted by Gustavo Petro because he «is a notorious defender of Pedro Castillo, whom he still recognizes as the president of Peru and not Dina Boluarte.» Aristas Gattas Abugattas, Master in Diplomacy and International Relations from the Diplomatic School of Spain, mentioned to VOA that there are two perspectives regarding the transfer of the presidency of the Pacific Alliance to Peru. «On the one hand, international law has finally been fulfilled because through the intermediary role of Chile, Peru will be able to assume the pro tempore presidency of the Pacific Alliance as it corresponds. And on the other hand, it is the way the transfer is carried out, which responds to an immature behavior of López Obrador,» he said. The expert highlighted that the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a pragmatic posture to overcome the deadlock that existed within the alliance so that it could resume its functioning before the well-known conflicts between President Dina Boluarte and her counterparts López Obrador and Petro. How many summits have been held? Seventeen summits of the Pacific Alliance have been held in the last eleven years. Peru hosted the event on three occasions during the governments of Alan García (2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), and Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020). Colombia hosted it four times, while Mexico and Chile hosted it three times each. «Despite the discrepancies between Boluarte and López Obrador, the foreign ministries of Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico maintain an open dialogue that responds to years of relations between the four countries. It is precisely this that has allowed them to overcome impasses and find an intermediate solution,» he emphasized. Abugattas considered that Peru and Chile are the countries most interested in the success of the Pacific Alliance, unlike «Mexico, which is more concerned about its relationship with the United States, and Colombia, which is more concerned about its relationship with Europe,» he explained. «As long as there is less intervention from Mexico and Colombia, the alliance will function better,» he noted. Diplomacy Óscar Vidarte, Master in International Relations from the Pontifical Javeriana University of Colombia, emphasized to VOA the importance of diplomacy in resolving the crisis that existed regarding the functioning of the Pacific Alliance. «In recent times, we had moved away from diplomacy to assume a more confrontational discourse. The country’s relations cannot be based on insults and media attacks on Twitter. I think that was the basis of our relationship with Mexico and Colombia, but what this meeting [in Santiago to agree on the transfer of the Pacific Alliance] has shown is that agreements can be reached that allow Peru to exercise its rightful role,» he said. However, the expert mentioned that the Pacific Alliance will have «serious problems in developing.» «The Pacific Alliance is an intergovernmental body because it depends on the four member countries [Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile] to reach agreements, hold meetings, and reach consensus,» he added. Vidarte mentioned that aside from Peru assuming the pro tempore presidency, «there will be little progress if the relationship with Colombia and Mexico remains very poor.» Despite this, the internationalist did not venture to say whether López Obrador and Petro will hinder Boluarte’s leadership of the trade bloc in the coming months. «I don’t think they represent a danger to the functioning of the Pacific Alliance,» he said. In this scenario of reducing tensions, Vidarte pointed out that the new Mexican chancellor Alicia Bárcena could play a key role in gradually restoring diplomatic ties between her country and Peru. «We should take advantage of the context and diplomacy to get closer to Mexico again. The relationship will not improve as long as Boluarte and López Obrador govern both countries, but at least with a little pragmatism, we can have peace,» he said. The expert highlighted that Chile has played a transcendental role in this difficult context to make the pro tempore presidency for Peru viable, but recognized that the southern country also does so because it is very interested in the success of the trade bloc, unlike Mexico and Colombia. Connect with Voice of America! Subscribe to our YouTube channel and activate notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Fuente de TenemosNoticias.com: www.vozdeamerica.com
Publicado el: 2023-07-03 02:54:00
En la sección: América Latina – Voice of America