Chile Forum

has anybody heard about this? thots?

Brazil: South America Union Born

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 24, 2008

A new South American union was created as leaders of the continent’s 12 independent nations signed a treaty creating the organization and set out to devise a continental parliament. Some view the union, known as Unasur, as the region’s version of the European Union. Brazil, which organized the meeting in Brasília, where the union was born, wants it to help coordinate defense affairs across South America. But the nations were not able to reach a consensus on how to do that.

more:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008- ... 240267.htm
http://www.coha.org/2008/05/28/brazil-s ... withdraws/
http://colonos.wordpress.com/2007/04/18 ... d-already/

Yea, this thing has been floating around for a while. If the EU is divided, South America is really divided.

Hmmm, interesting. A few of my (very) random thoughts on this. Does Brasil want to be the leader of this union? If it meets in Brasilia does that make them the leader or only the first host country for the meeting? Seems to me to have a lot of symbolic value for the country that hosts the first meeting. Will the meeting location rotate to different host countries or will it have a permanent administrative location? Like Brasilia? Chile should want to be the symbolic leader of this and not let Brasil grab that honor.

From my conversations with local, patriotic Chileans...they don't think much of other South American countries and would rather be allied with the US. They like it that Chile and the US are doing joint military maneuvers. Just my personal experience with the locals in my area.

Chuck J 3.0 wrote:. . . . Chile should want to be the symbolic leader of this and not let Brasil grab that honor.

I'd suppose that Chilean politicians wouldn't care to be associated with what likely will be a sinking ship, even if it should be launched (current status seems to be an agreement to commence discussions to lead to an agreement -- maybe). If a permanent location, a South American "Strasbourg", were to be decided upon, it likely would be either in Argentina or in Brazil, I'd guess, as those two nations have larger populations and economies (if Chile has surpassed Argentina in real GDP, it certainly hasn't Brazil), not to mention greater prominence historically in the rest of the world.