Central American Integration System – Ioannis Papageorgiou

Central American Integration System – Ioannis Papageorgiou
5. Integration in Central America today: political stagnation and
institutional conflict
The setting up of the SICA had significant consequences for the region. Firstly, it
confirmed the incorporation of Panama in Central America. Panama became a full
member of the SICA, in 1994 it signed the Parlacen Constitutive Treaty and, from
1997 onwards, elects members to the Central American Parliament. 19 It also
normalized the presence of Belize in the Central American context – Belize became a
full member of the SICA in 2001 and has either observer or even full status in most
other integration organs.
Also, it set a number of economic integration goals – the creation of a customs
union, a common market and freedom of movement for citizens and goods. On
October 1993, the Guatemala Protocol was adopted: the Protocol reformed the 1960
General Treaty on Economic Integration establishing the CACM and set new targets
for economic integration (including the creation of a Central American Economic
Union) and formalized the so-called economic subsystem of the SICA. This remodelling
of economic integration allowed, finally, Central Americans to be taken into
consideration by the other economic blocs of the world, in particular by the EU which
has since the beginning supported integration of the region – for political/ideological as
well as economic reasons – and the NAFTA which was the Central America’s primary
economic objective. 20
Gradually, the SICA expanded to other areas of integration, too. Member states
adopted, on the 30th of March of 1995, the Treaty on Social integration, aiming to
19
In summer 2009, the newly elected President of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, announced that the
country would withdraw from the Parlacen Treaty and, in September 2009, Panama formally submitted
its decision to the other member States of the SICA. This development may have an interesting
incidence in the relationship between member states and regional institutions, especially following the
request by the Parlacen of a binding consultative opinion of the Central American Court of Justice on
the matter.
20
Trade with – and aid from – North America, in particular the United States is of paramount
importance for Central America. In 2008 the US was largest trade partner of the CACM with 31,6% of
the region’s exports and 33,4% of its imports, ahead of intra-regional trade (29.4% of its imports and
12,8% of its exports) as well as trade with the EU (source: SIECA – Sistema de Estadísticas de
Comercio). When NAFTA was first established in the 1990s, Costa Rica tried in vain to join it on its
own, on the grounds that it had a, more or less, similar economic development to Mexico. The US
though refused to contemplate an economic agreement with so small a country and suggested a
coordinated sub-regional approach.
18