Mercosur and Palestine.. A Common Market with a Political Horizon | Politics
After the events of October 7, the Palestinian issue returned to the forefront, attracting the world’s attention. A group of countries took the initiative to recognize the State of Palestine, such as Norway, Spain, and Ireland. Others confirmed their recognition, such as Brazil, Nicaragua, and Chile. Many countries expressed their intention to recognize the Palestinians’ right to exist, and to defend their full membership in the United Nations and the various international mechanisms associated with it.
This dynamic of recognition, and its support on various fronts: economic, political, and diplomatic, included the Mercosur axis in Latin America, which includes Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and finally Bolivia, whose joining the axis is still linked to the completion of some formal technical procedures, after its initial decision on the subject. Its President, Luis Arce, attended the recent 64th summit held in the city of Asuncion in Paraguay on July 8, 2024. In addition to partner countries, they are:: Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
Common market with a political horizon
Mercosur was founded on March 26, 1991, by the Treaty of Asunción, which entered into force after the member states signed the so-called “Ouro Preto” Protocol, which established the institutional framework for the finances of the economic community. Its organizational structure consists of the Common Market Council, which is the governing level of the bloc, and is composed of the foreign and economic ministers of the member states, who alternate in presiding over this council every six months.
The Common Market Group is an executive mechanism that takes executive measures to coordinate economic policies to liberalize trade exchanges with the gradual lifting of customs duties.
The membership of this group consists of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Economy and the Governor of the Central Bank. In addition, there is a General Secretariat that is responsible for communicating with the structures of the Common Market and communicating with partners and other countries. There is also an Economic and Social Forum, an Administrative Court, and a Permanent Court in the city of Asuncion in Paraguay that evaluates and reviews Mercosur policies.
Mercosur is a common market for South American countries. It is truly a cry in the face of the presence of the United States of America in the region to preserve its interests that intersect with the interests of a part of the political and intellectual elite in Latin American countries, against the aspirations of the peoples of the region who yearn for freedom and to strengthen the path of democratic transformation.
It is also an expression of rejection of the American vision that is identical with the Zionist agenda in the region. In this context, the Mercosur Group signed an economic and trade cooperation agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority in Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 20, 2011.
It is an agreement that implies recognition of the State of Palestine, and employs the façade of the economy and trade exchange to serve the Palestinian people’s right to justice and freedom on the one hand, and mobilizes the rest of the regional and national axes to follow the same example, such as the BRICS countries, for example, on the other hand.
The volume of trade transactions between the Mercosur countries and the State of Palestine amounts to 32 million dollars per year, which is likely to re-adjust the dynamics of international relations at all levels, in victory for the values of justice and lifting injustice from the oppressed, regardless of their nationality, religion, skin color or race.
Especially since the Mercosur axis countries have relations with other regional axes such as the European Union, with which it signed a preliminary agreement on June 28, 2019. There are also powerful countries that founded Mercosur, such as Brazil, for example, that can play pioneering and influential roles in support of the issue of recognizing the State of Palestine from within the BRICS group of countries or outside it, such as the G20 countries, of which Brazil is a member state.
In this context, it is important to note the fact that the four founding countries of Mercosur agreed to refuse to receive ships flying the Malvinas flag, which is an Argentine archipelago colonized by Britain in the far south of Argentina, in an important indication of the rejection of all colonial strategies, both British and French, within the countries of South and Central America and the Caribbean region.
This was clearly demonstrated by the emphasis by the then President of Uruguay, José Mujica, on the need to invite Venezuela and Ecuador to join the Mercosur Common Market by creating a special committee appointed by the heads of state of the institution to consider the issue. This did not happen for many reasons, dominated by politics more than anything else.
Brazil is the first country to ratify the agreement.
According to the requirements of international law, especially the Geneva Convention of 1969, which is considered the international instrument for international agreements and relations between states, signing an international agreement does not mean that it has entered into force. Rather, it then requires passing through the ratification procedure, the details of which differ from one state to another.
Brazil wisely took advantage of the moment and the favorable international context, and announced the ratification of the free trade agreement with the State of Palestine on the occasion of the 64th Mercosur Summit, more than a decade after the signing of the agreement. This was in reference to supporting the Palestinian people in their liberation struggle against the racist Zionist entity, and in defiance of Israel, from whose capital Tel Aviv the Brazilian ambassador was previously withdrawn in May of this year by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, accusing this entity of genocide against a defenseless people.
This was also a direct reason for Brazil's support for South Africa in its legal battle against Israel in the International Court of Justice, along with many other countries, especially since the latter is also a signatory and ratified the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations on December 9, 1948.
Brazil, through its President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, went beyond recognizing the State of Palestine, and even likened the crimes of the Israeli occupation to the crimes of the Holocaust itself. This is a call for more support and recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people by Latin American and Caribbean countries, after the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Barbados recognized the Palestinian State in the context of the new geostrategic situation created by the events following the Al-Aqsa Flood.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera Network.