Mercedes Botto Andrea Carla Bianculli - Flacso

no comparative statistical analyses. Apart from this basic survey, another important task had to do
with the evaluation of the different possible scenarios and their expected impact on each of the
national productive sectors.
At the regional level, similar surveys were carried out. In 1993, the GMC appointed an expert, who
was part of a research centre associated to the Brazilian government, the Instituto de Pesquisa
Econômica Aplicada (IPEA). Financed with the technical aid provided by the EU and the Inter-
American Development Bank (IADB), Honorio Kume was designated to perform this survey, and
to assist national governments in the meetings of the GMC, where he turned out to be an active
participant.
In Argentina, the need to come up with a proposal for the CET gave way to a superposition of
studies and the appointment of different working groups. In all, three special studies can be
identified.
A first group was composed of technical experts from the Ministry of Economy, who were to fulfil
certain tasks regarding Mercosur, and academics from the Faculty of Economy at the Universidad
de Buenos Aires (UBA) 29. This group was coordinated and financed through the Ministry’s budget
and its main objective was to collect all the existing information about the tariff positions in the
four member countries in order to build a comparative matrix. This survey was guided by the
demands and particular requirements of the officials of this public agency, who were also part of
the different working groups within Mercosur. In addition, these technical experts elaborated
proposals and reports that were raised to the negotiators30. A second survey was appointed by the Ministry of Economy: financed through loans from the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the survey was commissioned to a group of
academics selected on a personal basis. The fees of these appointed experts tripled those of the
Ministry officials who were responsible for the negotiation process, a situation that was thus
regarded with suspicion. Even if the aims of this consultancy group were to provide advice and
contribute to the design of the CET, the directives and parameters of the research were settled by
the Undersecretary, and did not necessarily respond to the requirements of the actual negotiators.
Instead, this group relied heavily on the information that they already had and on a matrix showing
input data that was outdated.
29 The tasks were divided between the UBA academics and the technical experts: while the latter focused on
the development of the parameters – since there was a perceived need for this information during the
negotiations – and the coordination of the different activities within this joint group, the former worked on
the comparative study and elaborated diverse statistical measures given that this data was of great utility
during the negotiations [Interview with public official].
30 As one public official stated: “However, one asks for instructions, but we also make proposals and suggest, for instance,
that all goods produced in the region should be protected, while those produced in third countries could be applied a tariff between
0 and 2%. Nevertheless, the final decision – the exact level of the tariffs to be applied – lay in the hands of the Ministers.
Therefore, they would just agree and decide that the maximum tariff level would be of 20% and that, then, this should be
escalated by 2 in 2. These were the guidelines they gave for the elaboration of the CET proposals”.
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