Relaciones internacionales.indb - HOMINES

ALINE FRAMBES-BUXEDA
It is our opinion that when a group of countries become integrated
the existence of certain minimum requirements are indispensable and
the process has some inevitable results. The necessary characteristics and
results are:
First: Effective integration occurs only among countries with similar
levels of economic development. This makes possible the creation of
strong economic ties, an equitable division of labor among the economies,
and a relatively similar distribution of the benefits.
Second: State governments play a direct and growing role in the
processes of integration. Integration is always regulated (eventually) by
the government. Interstate institutions are legally created by the “governmental
apparatus” of the member nations. Therefore, integration requires
a political and legal process regulated by the States. Each “state apparatus”
directs the process of integration in order to benefit the dominant economic
interests or dominant class of it’s country (and its diverse subgroups).
Strong states are necessary as the driving force of successful integration.
The experience of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the
former process of socialist integration CAME (now in the process of total
disintegration) are good examples of this requirement.
Third: The process of integration has a regional character. These
processes are more successful and viable among countries that occupy the
same geographical region.
Fourth: Integration can only be successfully achieved between States
with the same type of economic and social systems (same modes of
production). It is for this reason that each system of integration benefits
one particular social class or particular economic interest groups above
all others. Integration is closely related to the social, cultural and political
situation of each country. Three possible types of integration have taken
place in this century: capitalist integration (among industrialized nations),
socialist integration (now terminated after 1990) which also had occured
between another type of industrialized countries, and third world integration
(among developing nations).
Fifth: Real integration increases social productivity and causes profound
lasting changes in the economic structures of all member States.
Moreover, the integration process will always benefit some social classes,
social fraction or groups more than others in each country. For whose
benefit What social groups or social classes benefit from “integration”
is always of core importance.
c) Frank Deppe (Hg), Europaische Wirtschaftsqemeinschaft (EWG), Ed. Rowohlt,
Hamburg, 1975, pp. 232-233, 241-245, 256-274.
d) Aline Frambes-Buxeda, Der Andenpakt (The Andean Group Integration),
VAG VERLAG, Bd. 75, Bamberg, Fed. Republic of Germany, 1989, 511 pp.
• HOMINES • Vol. XX, Núm. x - xxxxx de 2005 91