An iron option:Mercosur or provinces of an empire

RAPOPORT, MARIO Y MUSACCHIO ANDRES

Dialogo

LAI

Lugar: Viena; Año: 2006 p. 13 - 16

1028-9100

After several years of profound deterioration, Mercosur has started to show signs of revival. The process of rapprochement between Argentina and Brazil, initially based on the idea of productive agreements, stemmed in the ‘90s from an exclusively commercial approach and from an extremely lax approach to economic and financial globalization. Thus, they were responding ideologically to the postulates of the “Washington Consensus”. While the regional trade networks, which Paraguay and Uruguay immediately joined, achieved much faster growth than trade with the rest of the world, they were not enough to transform the new project into a self-sustaining development space. Moreover, among the main players were a few multinationals that were protecting market deregulation policies and a sectorial agreement that would survive.