On Tuesday (28), the Parliament of Mercosul approved a political agreement, which will allow the establishment of the attenuated proportionality criterion for the election of future representatives of the countries of that bloc. The two most populated countries – Argentina and Brazil – will have their caucuses increased, although in two stages. All countries of the bloc have currently 18 congresspeople. The new rule increases Brazil’s and Argentina’s amount of representatives, although they are still in a smaller proportion regarding the population of the other countries.

Brazil should elect 37 congresspeople for Mercosul in 2010, if the rules on those elections are approved by the end of September 2009 by National Congress. Only in 2014, when the transition stage for the establishment of the new parliament is concluded, the 75 congresspeople to which Brazil would be entitled should be elected. Argentina should choose 26 congresspeople in 2011, and at the end of the transition stage, will elect 43 of them. Paraguay and Uruguay will keep their current caucuses, with 18 congresspeople each.

Until the moment of the voting, several versions of agreement proposals were circulating among congresspeople from the four countries. At the beginning of the XVII Floor Session, yesterday, the claims presented by the Paraguayan caucus nearly led the negotiations to an impasse.

Historical document
The president of the Paraguayan Representation, congressman González Núñez, who had made the harshest speeches regarding the current situation of Mercosul the day before, classified the agreement as a “historical document”. That is a gigantic step for the consolidation of a true integration, in which we all can submit to a common rule. Integration had been so far a mere chimera or the expression of a desire”, said González.

The Paraguayan, who were against the proportionality principle, still required the broadening of the powers of the Permanent Revision Court (TPR) of Mercosul, and the commitment to creating the Justice Court of the bloc as conditions to accept the implementation of the proportional representation.

In addition to being attenuated, the so-called “citizen representation”, will only be fully established in 2014. Deputy Beto Albuquerque (PSB-RS) argues that, when electing unilaterally 18 representatives to Parlasul, Paraguay “created and embarrassment”, and established an amount which should perhaps be excessively large for that forum.

Deputy Celso Russomanno (PP-SP), though, believes that the resistance of Paraguay on the amount of Brazil’s representatives needed to cede to the arithmetic argument: “after today’s meeting, we could get to an agreement, and were able to make them understand that, if the Brazilian congresspeople in Mercosul are 75, we will have one congressman/woman for each 2,000,000 Brazilians, while they have one for each 180,000 people.”

From the newsroom/PR
With information from Agência Senado

Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda