By Carlos Malamud*

Heads of state at the 14th ALBA Summit held in Caracas in 2017/ EneasMx/ Wikimedia Commons

Several proposals claiming to promote regional integration in Latin America, particularly South America, have received attention in recent months, but proponents’ continued reliance on the same political-ideological alignments as always leaves little hope of bridging the deep splits in the region. Coming in the wake of completion of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, after arduous and complicated negotiations, the proposals appeared to be good news. But that has not been the case.

• The new push follows the creation of PROSUR by right-leaning governments in March and, more recently, efforts to relaunch UNASUR by left-leaning groups such as the Grupo de Puebla (Progresivamente) – each claiming commitment to unify the region behind their political visions. Two of the main advocates, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera on the right and Argentine Presidential Candidate Alberto Fernández on the left, have taken the easy path of convoking like-minded supporters while rejecting opponents.
• These groups appear to have learned nothing from the first decade of the 21st century, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez pushed his Bolivarian project. The three efforts emblematic of the period – ALBA, CELAC, and UNASUR – all eventually failed. The rise of neoliberal governments in various countries since then has produced an even more complex situation. The new governments have continued emphasizing ideological conformity, reducing prospects for unity. Last December, a “Conservative Summit of the Americas” inspired by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his son met in Foz de Iguazú to rally the most extreme elements of the region’s right, conditioning participation on total agreement with its tenets.

There are exceptions.  The Pacific Alliance – a trade accord launched by Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico eight years ago – has remained inclusive despite changes of government in each country. MERCOSUR, with its solid foundation and intense commercial exchanges, has also resisted ideological temptation in its way, although dismissive insults between President Bolsonaro and Argentine candidate Fernández do not bode well (even if both know that they need each other in the long run). But the fear is that extreme ideologies will, once again, trump national interests.

The intense electoral cycle of the past three years, and the pending elections in Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay, further complicate the situation. As the “turn to the right” has not turned out as predicted, the results of these three races this month will make regional relations even more unstable. The lack of a new vision for promoting Latin American regional integration is aggravated by the growing sense among both extremes of the political spectrum that they have to dig trenches.

• The need for a new vision is obvious as the growing attacks on multilateralism and the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war are going to force practically all international actors to take sides. Latin America will suffer potentially grave consequences if its governments and political leaders don’t grasp that inclusion, not exclusion, is the only way to advance unity and integration. Acceptance of differences, dialogue, and negotiation are what’s needed now, as is a creative imagination that can accept reality as it is, with all its problems and imbalances. The question is whether the existing leaders will be able to overcome this sad state of affairs.

October 1, 2019

*Carlos Malamud is Senior Analyst for Latin America at the Elcano Royal Institute, and Professor of Latin American History at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid. A version of this article originally was published in the Elcano Blog.