President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a decree that made Brazil’s return to the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) official. O country had left the block in 2019, during the management of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
O Decree No. 11,475/2023 was published yesterday (6) in Official Diary of the Union and promulgates the Constitutive Treaty of Unasur. It enters into force on May 6, 2023 and, with that, places the country back in the group created during the second government of President Lula, in May 2008.
Unasur was founded by the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. In 2010, the union was made up of all 12 countries in South America. Since then, however, some nations have withdrawn from Unasur, mainly due to political differences.
Like Brazil, Argentina also announced that it will return to the bloc, which currently has Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela as members, in addition to Peru, which is suspended.
The objective of Unasur is to promote integration between South American countries, in a model that seeks to integrate the two customs unions on the continent: Mercosur (made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and associates) and the Andean Community (formed by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru). In addition to the economic sphere, it goes beyond, to reach other areas of interest, such as social, cultural, scientific-technological and political.
“South American integration and unity are necessary to advance towards sustainable development and the well-being of our peoples, as well as to contribute to solving the problems that still affect the region, such as poverty, exclusion and social inequality. persistent”, says one of the sections of the treaty.
Diplomacy
Since the beginning of his third government, Lula has been defending the improvement of relations among the countries of the continent [https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2023-03/america-do-sul-so-se-desenvolvera-de-forma-conjunta-diz-lula].
Still in January, Brazil also returned to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), after three years away from the mechanism, and attended the seventh meeting group summit, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Celac brings together 33 countries in the region and since its creation in 2010, it has promoted meetings on various topics of interest to Latin American and Caribbean nations, such as education, social development, culture, transport, infrastructure and energy. In addition, he has spoken on behalf of the entire group on issues discussed globally, such as nuclear disarmament, climate change and the issue of drugs, among others.
In January 2020, the government of Jair Bolsonaro decided to withdraw Brazil from CELAC due to political and ideological differences with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. O end of US blockade Cuba is a historic claim of the bloc.
