Petro requested electrical and energy integration of South America in the CAN

The President of Colombia Gustavo Petro raised this Monday the integration of the region through the clean energy electrical connectivityinfrastructure that you mentioned “is present”, but which lacks this green matrix.

(See: Race against the clock: the first adjustments to the tax reform).

“Our regions are full of sunshine. If we include Chile and Venezuela, our regions are filled with winds, with water (…) Here we have the opportunity to plan another way (contrary to extractivism), which is precisely an energy integration. The cheaper electricity is in our countries, the more possibilities for development there will be,” he mentioned.

In his speech together with the rest of the leaders of the Andean community, Petro mentioned that it is necessary to make a drug policy review that leaves more than a million dead and imprisoned American citizens.

“I believe that this reality warrants that we from the Andean Community convene a conference of Central American, South American, and Caribbean countries to discuss drug policy, evaluate, weigh with the numbers, to see if that leads to a port or, on the contrary, we are sinking”.

On the other hand, the Colombian head of state raised the reincorporation of Chile and Venezuela to the Andean Community of Nations, as well as the approach to Argentina, with the aim of “raising the voice” of the region of the Americas in the face of global scenarios, such as climate change.

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“I think we need to be more powerful with more voices. I think that the requests from Chile and Venezuela should be taken into account. Go back to the first scenario of the Andean Community when they integrated this instrument. If Argentina approaches, better. The more voices we bring together, the more powerful that voice will be on the world stage.”, Petro said during his speech at the XXII Andean Presidential Council, where Ecuador hands over the presidency of the integration bloc to Peru.

Petro recalled that this integration can take place under the subscription of the American Convention on Human Rights, signed in 1972.

(See: Benedetti is credited as Colombia’s ambassador in Caracas).

Peru assumed this Monday the pro tempore presidency of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN)with a range of objectives this year at the helm, among them, working for the return of the aforementioned countries to the bloc “with whom we share the Andean heritage both geographically and politically, historically and socially,” announced Peruvian President Pedro Castillo in his speech in front of the leaders.

Roberto Casas-Lugo