The Chamber of Senators approved Bill 076/2022-2023 that ratifies the Mercosur agreement that will allow Bolivians to be in a third State access the protection and assistance of any consular representation of the countries of the blocin case there was no legation of the Plurinational State, according to the Bolivian Information Agency.
The agreement, called “On the consular cooperation mechanism between the States parties to Mercosur and Associated States” was signed on July 16, 2019, in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina, and will expand the scope of the consular attention provided by the Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to compatriots in countries where it does not have formal representation.
“The cooperation mechanisms provided for in the agreement will allow us to resort to the consulates of the countries that are part of Mercosur to provide necessary assistance and support to Bolivians abroadsaid Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta when he went to explain the contents of the norm to the Legislature.
The Mercosur countries will apply this agreement in emergency situations, need or high vulnerability, qualified and verified by the corresponding consular representative, in the case of girls, boys and adolescents accompanied or not, vulnerable people, such as victims of domestic violence, victims of human trafficking, and people in a state of indigence, among others; when a national of one of the parties is deprived of her liberty, provided that the State of nationality of the affected person so requests.
It may also be applied in case of repatriation of people in a state of high vulnerability, at the request of the State of nationality of the affected person; in view of natural disasters or anthropogenic, whenever requested by the State of nationality of the affected person and given the need to exchange information related to document legalization, when the parties so require, in order to confirm their authenticity.
Once the norm is sanctioned, the national Government must promulgate it and formalize the Deposit of the Instrument of Ratification of the Agreement.
He mercosur is composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Due to the fact that the Treaty of Asunción is open to the adhesion of other member States of the Latin American Integration Association, Venezuela became the first Latin American country to adhere to the constitutive treaty, in 2006, and Bolivia, in 2015.
Bolivia’s accession protocol to Mercosur was already signed by all the States parties in 2015. The congresses of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela (a country that was suspended from this bloc) approved Bolivia’s entry. It only remains for the Brazilian Congress to do so.
As a partner country, Bolivia participates in the different forums of the subregional bloc and can speak, but does not intervene in the vote.
It has a zero tariff for the trade of various products in the Mercosur countries.
