Sensitive products in Mercosur: non-tariff barriers as instruments of modernization?

GIL, LUCIANA

Köszeg

Seminario; Integration as a way of modernization. An explanatory framework for regional integration; 2013

Institute for Social and European Studies

When MERCOSUR started, with its liberalization of trade, it was pointed out that some Argentinean industries were sensitive because they were economically weak compared with the same industries in Brazil, and would therefore be exposed to an unacceptable level of risk in a common market. The footwear industry was one of the potential losers in the modernization project MERCOSUR intended to be. In order to prevent this, interim regulations were drawn up, and agreed to by all the member states, that would delay the effect of trade liberalization in sensitive sectors (in all member states) and give those industries extra time to improve their competitive performance. However, with the expiry of this temporary arrangement, new forms of protection were rapidly introduced. These new protection measures formed part of what governments presented as their development projects and sensitive sectors were explicitly included on their lists. As a result, these industries, once thought to be potential losers, were transformed into national priorities. In Argentina, this evolution can be divided into two distinct periods, each with its own belief system for economic development: -a neoliberal idea that dominated the region at the beginning of the integration process (1991-2001); -a critical idea that arose in the aftermath of the economic crisis, when integration became part of a new nationalistic discourse on growth and development (2002-2009). This presentation will identify continuities and changes in trade policies between 1991 and 2009, focusing on the role of non-tariff barriers in the different theories of economic development that characterized each period.