SELA salutes Pedro Castillo on taking over the presidency pro tempore of the Andean Community

The Permanent Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), Ambassador Clarems Endara, greeted the President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, who assumed the presidency pro tempore of the Andean Community (CAN) for the period 2022-2023 from his counterpart of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso.

“It is an honour for me to have held the presidency pro tempore of the Andean Community. I am pleased to hand over this baton now to the President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, a good friend, to whom I wish the greatest success as the new president pro tempore,” Lasso said at a ceremony held at CAN headquarters in Lima.

In the brief ceremony, which concluded the XXII Meeting of the Andean Presidential Council, Castillo said it was “a challenge to assume the post” and it was up to the Peruvians to “open the spaces” to the rest of the members of the bloc, which also includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, “to be a single family.”

Shortly before, during his speech at the presidential meeting, the Peruvian head of state called for the return of “Chile and Venezuela as full members,” countries with which they share “the Andean heritage in geographical, political, historical, and social terms.”

The Peruvian leader said Peru will work to materialise the commitments made today during the summit, in order to close the gaps for the benefit of the peoples of the Andean Community.

In addition, the Secretary-General of CAN, Jorge Pedraza, stated that the dynamics of the Community, under the presidency of Peru, will be focused on the social area, trade and infrastructure in the region.

He also invited his counterparts “to undertake a social re-engineering of CAN that places people at the heart of the integration process and the ultimate goal of these advances,” and added that this will be a “central issue” during his term as president pro tempore of the bloc.

To that end, he proposed to conduct “an exercise of joint reflection on the strengthening and updating of the social dimension of the Andean Community.”

The objective is to “generate public policies that respond to the current demands and needs of the population,” while aiming to “reduce inequalities in the Andean subregion.”