The Pacific Alliance wrapped up this unusual year with its customary presidential meeting between the 10th and the 12th of December 2020. Chile hosted the series of events that, in an unprecedented way, used digital technologies to connect entrepreneurial and government officials across the four members, including the Mexican President — Andrés López Obrador — and the interim Peruvian President  — Francisco Sagasti — who attended by videoconferencing. The meeting expected for mid-2020 had to be postponed due to COVID-19 travelling bans and other health measures. The presidents’ gathering was preceded by a series of sessions from the CEAP, the Council of Ministers and the technical groups.

Thus, it seems timely to recap on the PA’s progress this year, the shortcomings of the mechanism, which is close to its 10th anniversary, and options to move ahead in the near future. These insights consider the declarations and action plans set during this meeting and this year’s achievements.

The COVID-19 Action Plan

The PA celebrates the establishment and implementation of a COVID-19 Action Plan tailored to mitigate the pandemic’s effects and adopt economic recovery measures in thirteen areas including innovation, trade facilitation, information exchange, trade promotion and productive linkages. Following its characteristic practical approach, rather than grand design measures towards long-term economic recovery, the PA’s measures have one of these three scopes.

First, a targeted approach to solving specific problems such as allowing for the use of copies of non-digital origin certificates for product exports. This measure intended to avoid people’s physical movement for the administrative procedure to access preferential tariff treatment under the Commercial Protocol. Moving forward in the area of trade facilitation, this unexpected year calls the members’ attention to speed up the digitalisation of administrative procedures through their single windows and their regional interoperability. Let’s remind ourselves that there is a long road ahead for the full interoperability and electronic transmission of import and export certifications and other documents between the four single windows.

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Protocredits: Alianza del Pacífico

Early this month the presidents of the Pacific Alliance (PA) met in Lima, Peru for their regular yearly summit. The absence of the Mexican president overshadowed the XIV meeting and marked the first time in eight years that a president of the member states did not heed the call. A series of meetings by the ministerial councils and technical groups of the mechanism between 1 and 6 of July preceded the presidential gathering.

The outcomes of the presidential summit include a political Declaration in Support of the Multilateral Trading System that refers to the commitment of the members towards a rules-based system, their support to the World Trade Organization, and their rejection towards protectionist measures that have hindered global economic growth. Members also signed a Declaration for the Sustainable Management of Plastics stating their commitment to undertake specific initiatives to better management practices. Framework agreements for cooperation were concluded with Japan, the Eurasian Economic Commission and the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

As customary with the early harvest approach the Pacific Alliance has followed since its inception, the presidents and ministries highlighted the progress of the integration. The works underscored include multiple events hosted under the PA umbrella, such as macro business round-tables, joint commercial and investment promotion activities, the delivery of technical studies and several meetings for the exchange of experiences and good practices. The outcomes also report efforts to reach harmonisation at the normative, operative and technological level.

National agencies in the state members have also signed memoranda of understanding for future inter-institutional cooperation. One of them is an interesting Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Good Governmental Practices and the Development of Cooperation Mechanisms for the Prevention and Fight against Corruption in Public Procurement Systems within the Pacific Alliance. This memorandum represents a typical example of the problem-based approach PA members have followed from the start in the definition of their practical agenda. An approach that seems reasonable, albeit it brings to question the extent to which the PA regional agenda would be able to deliver meaningful results on these broad agenda growing not only in size but also complexity.

Following, the launch of the 2030 Vision in 2018, the presidents celebrated the conclusion of a work plan to pursue the aims envisioned for a more integrated; more global, more connected; more citizen-oriented PA. So far, the scope of the work plan is still unknown since the document is not public, and it is not clear what input from the civil society and other stakeholders was received for its construction.

Moving forward, the presidents instructed the working groups with a long list of mandates to undertake activities in areas such as trade facilitation, SMEs; public procurement; financial integration; trade, investment and tourism promotion; regulatory cooperation; global value chains and productive linkages; innovation; services and capital; tourism, labour, education; gender; and culture just to mention a few.

However, a close examination of these mandates make it evident a need for more stringent monitoring mechanisms of the activities undertaken to accomplish them. Although it is clear that some of these mandates are far-reaching and could not be achieved in the short-term, a few questions arise from the practice of presidential mandates.

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The Pacific Alliance reached its 7th anniversary this year with an active agenda but uncertain times lie ahead. With further presidential changes in Colombia in August and Mexico in December 2018, some concerns arise regarding how these presidential moves will affect the progress in the internal agenda of the PA. Securing presidential support is particularly relevant for the PA considering its intergovernmental model where presidents have had the major leading role since inception.

In the case of Colombia the election of Ivan Duque, the centre-right candidate, may represent less of a concern to the continuity of the PA. This is because the PA’s principles and ideas align with his views on investment promotion and economic development. The mechanism enjoys strong support from the business community in Colombia which has played a central role in its electoral campaign and its economic strategy. Duque’s potential support to the PA contrasts with his recent declarations that confirm his interest to withdraw from UNASUR.

In the case of Mexico, presidential changes represent a broader concern for the more unpredictable foreign policy line that Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) might follow for the coming six years. AMLO was able to secure a sweeping victory on the 1st of July with a slogan that states: ‘the best foreign policy is domestic policy’. It is not entirely clear what he means with this narrative other than he will prioritise dealing with domestic affairs such as corruption and drug trafficking-related crimes.  AMLO’s rhetoric until late stages of the presidential campaign has relegated foreign affairs to the side although setting a clearer foreign policy pathway will be unavoidable. In any case, the PA might be off to a good start as the elected president will join the outgoing president Enrique Peña Nieto during the Presidential Summit on the 24th of July.

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The presidents of the Pacific Alliance countries had a virtual meeting on May 6 to discuss the Pacific Alliance’s strategy towards 2030 and reiterate the instruction to the ministers to develop such a strategy, according to the Cali Declaration from last year. The presidents emphasised the requirement to propose a concrete plan to increase competitiveness and productivity, to strengthen the integration process and to disseminate the benefits of the PA to its citizens in a more effective way.

An interesting point of the brief declaration is that the presidents clearly spell out the commitment to develop deeper integration and its relation to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital. The scope of the 2030 strategy is put on the spot by this connection and questions how instrumental it could be in reducing not only barriers to trade but also going beyond in proposing concrete actions towards coordination, regulatory harmonisation, recognition and convergence and the development of regional public goods.

Presidents will meet again on the 24th and 25th of July 2018 when the pro-tempore presidency will be passed on to Peru for a year.

In the meantime, the third round of negotiations for free trade agreements with potential associate states –Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore– was held in Santiago, Chile from March 3rd through to the 9th. Parties reached agreements in the SMEs disciplines, transparency and regulatory improvement, general cooperation, and sanitary and phytosanitary rules.

Negotiators have anticipated that not everything could be negotiated as a bloc and some issues, particularly market access for goods, will require bilateral negotiations. On this occasion, the parties discussed the access offers for goods, services, investment and disciplines for the temporary entry of business people.
The next round of negotiations with associate candidates will be held in mid May in Ottawa, Canada.

Sources: alianzapacifico.net
larepublica.co
Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

Abstract:
A new map of regional integration that builds upon and questions the traditional paradigms of international insertion is being formed. This situation takes place in the context of the recent processes of regionalisation in Latin America that respond to the increasing multipolarity and interdependence in the contemporary global scenario.

The Pacific Alliance (PA) stands out as an innovative regional project of open regionalism, with specific features that provide it with an identity still under construction. The purpose of this article is to identify the continuities and ruptures evidenced by the  PA in terms of open regionalism as its underlying theoretic-conceptual framework. The article concludes that the PA has been configured as a distinct process compared to previous experiences with open regionalism in Latin America, with specific features that do not allow reducing the understanding of this regional actor to a typical case of open regionalism.

Resumen:
En el marco de los recientes procesos de regionalización que vive América Latina como respuesta a la creciente multipolaridad e interdependencia que identifican el escenario global contemporáneo se configura un nuevo mapa de la integración regional que retoma y cuestiona los paradigmas tradicionales de inserción internacional.

La Alianza del Pacífico (AP) se destaca como proyecto regional novedoso heredero del regionalismo abierto, con rasgos específicos que le imprimen una identidad propia aún en construcción. El objetivo del artículo es identificar las continuidades y las rupturas que evidencia la AP frente al regionalismo abierto como su marco teórico-conceptual inspirador. Se concluye que la ap se configura en sus pocos años de existencia como un proceso distinto de experiencias previas de regionalismo abierto en América Latina, con rasgos específicos que no permiten reducir la comprensión de este actor regional a un estudio de caso típico del enfoque del regionalismo abierto.

Author: Carlos Alberto Cháves García
Spanish Title: Aproximación Teórica y Conceptual para el Análisis de la Alianza del Pacífico
Full document: 2017, Chaves, Aproximación Teórica y Conceptual para el Análisis de la Alianza del Pacífico