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    MERCOSUR Agrees to Cooperate on Biofuels

    By Keith R | February 14, 2007

    Topics: Biofuels, Energy & the Environment, Environmental Protection, Sustainable Transport | No Comments »

          
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    Another one from the backlog queue. First tapped out some notes on this back in December! Only now remembered to dig it out (can I somehow blame it on the holidays?), because of the piece I just posted about the IDB and ethanol. Embarassed Sorry for the delay.

    In mid-December the top policymaking body of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR/MERCOSUL), the Common Market Council (Consejo del Mercado Común – CMC), approved and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to create a special task force on biofuels that will include its newest member (once ratification is completed), Venezuela.

    The name “task force” may sound innocuous, but the mandate given the new group is ambitious and potentially far-reaching. The move has all sorts of potential implications, geopolitical, economic, strategic and environmental. For example, in the case of Brazil, it is part of the complex international mosaic it is constructing to support its ambitions to be a biofuels superpower (more on that in a future blog). For Venezuela, it undoubtedly is part of President Chavez’s efforts to closely tie in Venezuela’s southern neighbors to his efforts to lead the continent and provide an economic and geopolitical counterweight to the US interests. To Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, it is a way to hitch a ride on the swift rise of Brazil in the global biofuels market, to pull in more investment and develop greater external market clout than each country would have had individually.

    The Biofuels Task Force is charged by the CMC with proposing measures for MERCOSUR approval and implementation to:

    The Task Force was given six months to present the CMC with its preliminary conclusions, and to wrap up its work and present final proposals by the end of 2007.

    — Keith R

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