International relations experts see Mercosur surviving its deepest crisis since it was created in 1991, a crisis sparked by Venezuela’s decision to assume the trade bloc’s rotating presidency despite complaints — on different grounds — from the four founding members: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

“The group will survive but, to do so, at least at this stage, it has no other option than reverting to its four original members. If in the future a new government takes over in Venezuela, things would be different.

“But right now it is impossible to reach any understanding with the administration of President Nicolás Maduro, which accuses the other members of seeking to revive the Plan Cóndor,” political analyst Rosendo Fraga said.

The Plan Cóndor was a scheme whereby in the 1970s and 1980s South American military dictatorships co-ordinated their efforts in their “dirty war” against leftist rebels and their sympathizers.

“Venezuela’s incorporation has brought about more problems than solutions. Meanwhile, Bolivia’s incorporation process has not yet been completed,” Fraga said.

Aníbal Jozami, the Dean of the Tres de Febrero National University, said, “the bloc will survive because the economic, commercial and political logic of these countries hinges on unity and integration.

“Of course at given times some political issues alter the normal progress of this logic. But when the political turmoil is over, Mercosur will emerge holding together.”

Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, an international relations expert with the private San Andrés University, said: “I don’t think that Mercosur will disappear. Barring collapses such as that of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the history of institutions created after the World War II has an extremely low obit rate, even though they may be barely operational such as what happened to the Andean Community of Nations, which continues to exist despite all the trials it went through.

“However, here there is something highly relevant. Already since the late 1990s Mercosur has been economically weak but the so called ‘Political Mercosur’ stood up firmly and intervened in different crises in the region. Now, regrettably, the group is also frail in the political field.”

If the experts agreed that the South American trade bloc will manage to survive the current political crisis, they had differing views regarding the possible ways the storm will be braved.

The Herald asked them whether they thought a solution could be dismantling the customs union they form and return to less ambitious free trade deals to prevent the complications posed by the need to adopt a common tariff vis-a-vis third countries.

Jozami said, “the only unions that survive are those which strengthen their integration processes, not those that downgrade them.”

Tokatlian said that currently Mercosur lacks both the political leadership and technical teams for a relaunching of the trade bloc and that, to compound things, the international environment is unfavourable for further negotiations.

“(Argentine President Mauricio) Macri visited Brussels, and also Berlin and met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to whom he stressed the importance that Mercosur and the European Union reach a free trade deal, which they have been negotiating for about 20 years. But Europe is right now facing much more excruciating problems such as the Brexit (the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU),” Tokatlian said.

Fraga, meanwhile, said that the South American bloc was already undergoing a de facto downgrade.

“Mercosur will continue to negotiate a free trade accord with the EU but its members are already starting to discuss bilateral deals, such as the one Uruguay and Chile will sign in September.”

He also recalled that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who visited Argentina this month, proposed a bilateral deal between Argentina and Mexico, and that Brazilian Foreign Minister José Serra has said twice publicly that, in Brazil’s view, Mercosur members should be allowed to sign bilateral accords.