Improvements in the creation of the MERCOSUR Parliament

In the Extraordinary Meeting of the Common Parliamentary Commission of the MERCOSUR (“CPCM”), celebrated on October 11, 2005 in the city of Buenos Aires, the “Foundations of Political Agreement for the implementation of the MERCOSUR Parliament” were approved by Disposition CPCM No 11/05.

In the past, the Common Market Council (“CMC”), through Decision 49/09, empowered the CPCM to take all the necessary measures to install the Parliament before December 31, 2006, among which was included the presentation of a project for the Protocol for the Incorporation of the Parliament (the “Protocol”), to submit for consideration of the CMC.

Throughout the first semester of the year 2005, the CPCM formed a High Level Technical Group (“HLTG”) to write a draft of the Protocol. To this end, the HLTG filed with the CPCM a draft of the Protocol, which was analyzed and discussed by the members of the Parliament during the first semester of the year 2005. This stage ended with the filing and delivery to the CMC of a report explaining the status of the negotiations of the definitive text of the Protocol.

In this way, the CPCM has recently finalized the first stage of the agenda for the creation of the Parliament. The next step would be for the Member Countries shall sign the Protocol, which is estimated to occur before December 31, 2006.

The text of the document approved by the CPCM, which represents the unification of all the proposals made by the group of legislators of the Member Countries forming the CPCM, is not yet available for general public. It has yet to be analyzed by the Technical Group of the MERCOSUR, which is formed by a group of well- known specialists born in different countries who work voluntarily. The document has then to be ratified by all Member Countries.

The Parliament of the MERCOSUR will be ruled by the applicable legislation of the MERCOSUR and the dispositions of the Protocol. The Parliament will be part of the institutional structure of the MERCOSUR.