Arab-South American Interregionalism: From the Promises of the ASPA Summit to the Deadlock of the GCC-Mercosur Agreement

In December 2003 the former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the headquarters of the League of Arab States. Together with Amr Moussa, the then secretary general of the Arab League, Lula da Silva laid the foundations for the institutionalization of the Arab-South American relations. Less than two years later, in March 2005, the First Summit of Arab-South American Countries (ASPA) was held, facilitating various forms of cooperation between these two regions, including the Framework Agreement on Economic Cooperation between the GCC and Mercosur. This paper analyses the political and economic impact of demarcating the physical-political boundaries of the Arab–South American space around the 34 member states of Unasur and the Arab League. It also discusses the evolution of the institutions created around the ASPA Summit with the aim of promoting the flow of capital, goods, peoples and ideas across this interregional space. As for the GCC-Mercosur Agreement – a highly celebrated spinoff the ASPA Summit – the paper demonstrates that there are at least three key factors preventing this agreement from getting off the ground after more than fifteen years of existence. As follows: the excessive concentration of trade relations between Saudi Arabia and Brazil, the absence of mechanisms capable of attracting investments from the Gulf sovereign wealth funds to Mercosur, and the exclusivist position of facilitating relations solely between economic agents linked to export and investments sectors. It concludes by suggesting that even if some economic gains have been reaped since 2005, both the ASPA Summit and the GCC-Mercosur Agreement remain state-only endeavours, i.e., top-down processes with very few developed mechanisms to foster the engagement of the civil societies in South America and the Arab world in these interregional enterprises. This is one of the main reasons behind the limited successes both projects have achieved hitherto.