Weekly Report - 21 October 2003
BRAZIL-ARGENTINA: Lula & Kirchner launch `BA Consensus'
Lula offers a `strategic alliance' in which both will share leadership of an approach to replace the neoliberal Washington Consensus.
Only days after Argentine President Néstor Kirchner let it be known that he was not supporting Brazil's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, President Lula da Silva turned up in Buenos Aires, proposing that both of them should jointly assume a leadership role in South America, behind a strategy outlined in a `Buenos Aires Consensus'. The name had been chosen deliberately to convey the image of something intended to replace the Washington Consensus — the set of policy proposals embodying the neoliberal approach to the region's economic problems.
The approach draws on the two countries' recent joint experience in the G-22 during the Cancún trade talks, on Kirchner's stance during his negotiations with the IMF and with Argentina's external debtors, and on the strategies developed by Lula's foreign-policy advisers which envisage Brazil playing a leadership role in the international arena, building from its immediate environs outwards.
Salient points
Below are excerpts from both the `Buenos Aires Consensus' and Lula's address to the Argentina congress, which illustrate the main drift of the `strategic alliance' the two leaders are embarking upon.
Only days after Argentine President Néstor Kirchner let it be known that he was not supporting Brazil's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, President Lula da Silva turned up in Buenos Aires, proposing that both of them should jointly assume a leadership role in South America, behind a strategy outlined in a `Buenos Aires Consensus'. The name had been chosen deliberately to convey the image of something intended to replace the Washington Consensus — the set of policy proposals embodying the neoliberal approach to the region's economic problems.
The approach draws on the two countries' recent joint experience in the G-22 during the Cancún trade talks, on Kirchner's stance during his negotiations with the IMF and with Argentina's external debtors, and on the strategies developed by Lula's foreign-policy advisers which envisage Brazil playing a leadership role in the international arena, building from its immediate environs outwards.
Salient points
Below are excerpts from both the `Buenos Aires Consensus' and Lula's address to the Argentina congress, which illustrate the main drift of the `strategic alliance' the two leaders are embarking upon.
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