Brazil’s general secretary of Foreign Relations, Ambassador Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, is representing Brazil at the 16th gathering of the Andean Presidential Council, which gets underway today in Lima, Peru.
This is the first time that Brazil and the other Mercosur member countries (Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile) are participating as associate members of the Andean Community (CAN), currently formed by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The CAN countries are already associate members of the Mercosur.
According to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations, the decision to confer associate member status on the Mercosur countries was made on July 7 by the Andean Council of Ministers of Foreign Relations.
For the secretary-general of the Andean Community, Ambassador Allan Wagner, this decision has symbolic importance for the convergence of the two subregional blocs in the formation of the South American Community of Nations.
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