Bolivar's Dream Come True‪?‬

The last decades have witnessed the rise of a series of regional integration processes, in Europe as well as in other regions of the world. The European Union (EU) can certainly be called the most advanced of these projects. It all began as a project of integration of major industries in order to overcome the division between the largest European states, France and Germany, prevent future wars and raise the living standards of the population through enhanced economic development. With the initial aid of the Marshall Plan, the European Union today is one of the three major players of the world economy besides the United States of America and East Asia. It has brought welfare and an exceptionally long-lasting period of peace to its peoples, who had once been divided by a number of devastating wars.

Shortly after the treaties founding the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), European Atomic Energy Community (EAC) and European Community (EC) were signed, there were efforts in other regions of the world as well to follow this example, notably in Latin America, where the Latin American Free Trade Association (Asociación Latinoamericana de Libre Comercio, LAFTA), the Central American Common Market (Mercado Común Centroamericano, CACM), the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Comunidad del Caribe; CARICOM) and the Andean Pact (now Andean Community or Comunidad Andina de Naciones, CAN) were established. The founding Treaty of the latter, the Cartagena Agreement (or Acuerdo de Cartagena, AC), was signed in 1969, when five nations, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Ecuador, decided to seek “a balanced and harmonious development” through integration and economic and political co-operation. Venezuela decided to join in 1976 and withdrew again in April 2006, whereas Chile withdrew membership as early as in 1976, after the accession to power of Augusto Pinochet. In order to achieve the aims laid down in the Treaty, a complex institutional framework was drawn up, modelled upon the European Community and featuring intergovernmental as well as supranational elements.