Carlos José ESPÍNDOLA, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
Rafael SILVEIRA, Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnlogia Catarinense, Brazil
This article provides a brief historical review of institutional innovations implemented in the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) over the period between 2003 and 2021. This period initially coincides, between 2003 and 2014, with the election of left-wing and center left governments throughout the bloc, which started with the election of Lula da Silva (2002) in Brazil and ended between December 2015, with the inauguration of Maurício Macri in Argentina, and May 2016, with the coup that would remove Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Within the period studied, Mercosur underwent a broad transformation, with several new structures established: the Permanent Review Court, the Mercosur Economic Convergence Fund (FOCEM), the Competitive Adaptation Mechanism (MAC), the Mercosur Parliament, the Mercosur Social Institute (ISM), the Mercosur Productive Integration Program, and the Institute of Public Policies on Human Rights (IPPDH). In addition to institutional innovations, the bloc has expanded to include all other countries in South America, whether as a member or associate state. The second period, framed between 2015 and 2021, is generally characterized by the restoration of neoliberal economic policies in the bloc, consequently institutional changes by the new right-wing and far-right governments that rose to power. The new geopolitical reality tended to bring the bloc closer and subordinate to US interests in the foreground, and European interests in the second. Among the most relevant institutional changes of this period are the suspension of Venezuela as a State member, the freezing of Bolivia's final accession process, and the suspension of direct elections to the Mercosur Parliament. Thus, the main objective of this work is to identify and describe the institutional transformations of Mercosur in the period 2003 – 2021.
Mots clés : Mercosur |South America|Regional Integration|Geopolitics
A102544RS