THE CARTAGENA CONSENSUS: FROM FAILURE TO DIALOGUE FOR LATIN AMERICAN REGIONALISM

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the history of the meetings organised by the group of Latin American debtor countries, which, within the debt crisis of the 1980s, tried to develop common strategies to implement during the negotiations with their creditors within the Cartagena Consensus. The biggest debtors, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, along with other states in the region that joined the initiative, started a series of meetings to politicise the issue of debt unpayability. The meetings of the so-called Consenso de Cartagena are often portrayed as a story of failure, as the case-by-case approach favoured by the US Treasury finally prevailed, separating the interests of the debtors and leading to differentiate negotiations. An attempt will be made to give a new reading of the Cartagena Consensus, re-evaluating its results on the basis of the objectives that the participants realistically thought they could achieve, and analysing the important legacy of institutional contacts and ideas that would soon lay the foundations for an important season of Latin American regionalism. The analysis of the most recent literature on Cartagena will be complemented by the results of a field research conducted in Argentina.