Central American Integration System – Ioannis Papageorgiou

Central American Integration System – Ioannis Papageorgiou
1. Introduction
Central American integration presents a number of interesting elements for scholars
and political analysts alike. In the first place, it is one of the few regional integration
schemes which is not limited to economic objectives alone and claims, at least in
theory, to have ambitious political goals. Indeed, the present integration organism,
called Central American Integration System (henceforth SICA from its Spanish
acronym), has set among its objectives the establishment, not only of a free-trade
zone, but also of a common market and, in the long-run, of a political union. Secondly,
it also presents a number of original characteristics which deserve particular
consideration, not the least of which is the fact that the last wave of regional
integration started with the establishment of a directly elected parliamentary body, the
Central American Parliament (henceforth Parlacen from its Spanish acronym of
Parlamento Centroamericano) and that the original purpose of this process – not
unlikely the early efforts in European integration – was to strengthen internal and
regional democratization. Furthermore, it is one of the rare cases of regional
integration where its judicial organ, the Central American Court of Justice, is entrusted
with supranational powers and, at least in theory, enforceability of its rulings. Still, the
present-day integration process, despite some initial successes, is stagnating and, at
times, regressing while democratic legitimacy elements remain weak and, on occasions,
wither. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current regional integration process
from the point of view of its democratisation using as guidelines the qualitative macroindicators
set by the IDW, to examine the gradual reversal of the initial drive towards
political integration and to draw the perspectives for the future.
2. The history of regional integration in Central America
The five countries that composed traditionally the Central American Isthmus
(Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) 1 share a long common
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Geographically, Central America also includes Panama, which became an independent state, carved out
of Colombia in 1903 – with the active U.S. help, in order to facilitate the construction of the Panama
Canal - and English-speaking Belize, formerly British Honduras. Historically, though, neither country was
oriented towards Central America, while Belize had a long-standing feud with Guatemala which
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