Birth of The Mercosul Parliament



This is the Mercosur Building in Montevideo,Uruguay. The building is the seat of the Mercosur Parliament, officially installed by lawmakers of the five official member countries in Brasilia, December 14th. As of today parliament members are chosen by national congress members and already is a kind of upgrade from the former internal Parliamentary Joint Commision. But from January, 1st, 2011 there will be general national elections where citizens of Mercosul Countries will have to elect their representative to Montevideo - the Brussels of South America.

I have written elsewhere in Portuguese that 2006 is the year when Mercosul countires have witnessed the birth of a mercocracy complete with mercocrats, mercopoliticians, merco grassroot organizations and the like. The Mercosul / Mercosur is in the second stage of Community Forming, that of customs integration.

The next step is to bring all the countries to harmonized macroeconomy, laws, internal policies and above all a single currency. A difficult step that demands among other things the end of smuggling and other long-cherished "rights". Mercosur founding members are Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Peru are associate members. Venezuela has officially joined the Mercosul / Mercosur this year. Wiil an extra star be added to the Mercosur flag? Can´t answer that now.

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