Values in European Union-Latin America and Mercosur-Pacific Alliance convergence. Do European shared values promote convergence?

Abstract

The question if shared values between Europe and Latin America can foster convergence between both is tied to the question of how to overcome the present fragmented status of Latin America. We argue that negotiation between Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Pacific Alliance (PA) -- the so called “convergence in diversity” proposed in 2014 by former presidents Lula Da Silva (Brazil) and Ricardo Lagos (Chile) – provides a starting point, especially after the signing of the European Union (EU) -Mercosur association agreement (2019). This agreement has been hailed as developing a level playing field for Mercosur and PA because all their member nations have made deeper concessions on technical norms, investment, intellectual
property, among other, to the EU than to each other (Bartesaghi and Melgar 2018).
Accordingly, their normative/regulatory convergence with Europe is expected to facilitate Mercosur-PA convergence. In this article we adopt the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA/ALADI, 1980) concept of convergence: the progressive multilateralization of partial economic agreements by means of periodical renegotiations between members (Caichiolo 2019, 248). This is different from strategic convergence (“the overlap of key. objectives and interests regarding long-term developments in world politics”, Braekus and Overland, 2007, 42), but represents a specific dimension of it. [...]