Mercosur Gets Parliament, But Not the Way Brazil Wanted It

The Brazilian delegation to the Joint Parliamentary Commission of the Mercosur drafted a document that will be presented this week in Montevideo on the definition of the bloc’s Parliament.

The 29th Mercosur meeting will take place in the Uruguayan capital on Thursday and Friday, December 8 and 9.

The text is expected to be approved at the meeting, according to ambassador José Eduardo Felí­cio, general undersecretary for South America in the Ministry of Foreign Relations.

The ambassador reported that the initial idea is for each country to nominate 18 representatives to the parliament some time in 2006.

"It’s not what Brazil was seeking, which was representation proportional to the population of each country," he pointed out. According to Felí­cio, the proportionality issue should remain in discussion throughout the process of installing the parliament, expected to be concluded by 2014.

According to the ambassador, members of the Mercosur Parliament should eventually be chosen through direct elections in each country.

"Initially, the 18 representatives will be nominated; elections are envisaged for later on," he affirmed.

According to Felí­cio, in its first phase the Parliament will be merely advisory and opinionative. "These functions could be enlarged by 2014," he observed.

Agência Brasil

Tags:

You May Also Like

IBM Opens in Brazil LatAm’s First Mainframe Software Center

US-based IBM has opened a mainframe software competency center in São Paulo, Brazil, enabling ...

Brazil’s Referendum Fever: Congress Gets More than 300 Proposals

The Brazilian referendum on banning firearms and ammunition sales revived the debate on how ...

Brazil’s FAO Conference on Land Reform Lacked Representativity

The Second International Agrarian Reform and Rural Development Conference, organized by the United Nation’s ...

HP Starts Selling Linux Powered Computers in Brazil

Mandriva, publisher of the popular Mandriva Linux operating system, announced a new partnership with ...

10,000 from 14 Countries Expected at Brazil’s Amazon Forum

The general coordinator of the IV Pan-Amazon Social Forum, Adilson Vieira, informed that a ...

Another Poll Shows Dilma as Brazil’s Next President. She’s Only Losing in the South

Brazil’s latest public opinion poll taken by the Sensus Institute, sponsored by the National ...

LETTERS

By A special congressional committee looking into tax reform released a draft report, which ...

Brazilians Living on Stilt Houses First in Line for House Loans

One of the priorities of Brazil’s National Social Interest Housing Fund (FNHIS), which this ...

Brazil’s Mining Giant Vale Investing US$ 59 Billion in Next Four Years

Brazilian mining company Vale do Rio Doce is going to invest heavily in increasing ...