Andean Community countries want Chile and Venezuela to return to the bloc

The countries of the Andean Community, made up of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, want their neighbors Venezuela and Chile to return to the bloc to promote regional agendas for greater integration, the group’s foreign ministers said on Monday.

Venezuela resigned from the community at the beginning of this century and Chile, one of the founders of the bloc in 1969, has associate member status after withdrawing from the group in 1976.

Colombian Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva, in a speech prior to the meeting of the group’s presidents in Lima, considered that Venezuela and Chile are “fundamental allies” for the community.

“They can contribute to the construction and progress of the technical objectives and regional agendas that will definitely allow a robust and ambitious Andean bloc for the future,” he said.

With the exception of Ecuador, with former banker and businessman president Guillemo Lasso, new winds are blowing in the Andean region with the leftist leaders of Colombia, Gustavo Petro; from Bolivia, Luis Arce and from Peru, Pedro Castillo.

In Chile the leftist Gabriel Boric took power this year and in Venezuela there is the socialist president Nicolás Maduro.

The Peruvian foreign minister, Miguel Rodríguez Mackay, also advocated the incorporation of Argentina to the Andean bloc currently made up of 111 million inhabitants.

“The Andean homeland requires at this level of interdependence that it can fortify itself and that is why we will work for the return of Chile to the bosom of the Andean Community, and also in due course, of course, the return of Venezuela,” he said.

“And with them the incorporation of Argentina (…) their Andes require belonging, being part of the Andean Community,” he said.

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