Mercosur Parliament

The Parliament consists of 18 members of Parliament for each of the five Member Countries - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela - of which nine will be senators and nine deputies appointed by their respective National Congresses and who are currently performing their duties in the Senate and House of Representatives of each of the countries. This will be the composition during the first stage of implementation of this body, which will last until 2010. From 2011, the legislators will be appointed by popular vote, in accordance with the electoral law of each country and on dates coinciding with the respective national elections.

All the members of Parliament have the right to speak and to vote, with the exception of the Venezuelans members, who only have right to speak, because the country is still within the adhesion process. With the same restriction, the members of Parliament of the countries associated to Mercosur - Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia - could be invited to participate in future sessions.

Finally, in 2014, the first simultaneous elections in Mercosur will take place to appoint the members of the final definitive stage of the implementation of the Parliament. Their term of office will begin in 2015. The date of this election will be celebrated as the "Día Mercosur Ciudadano" (Mercosur Citizens’ Day) but will not be decided until the end of the year 2012.

The legislators must meet at least once a month in ordinary sessions and their assignments will last four years. The Parliament will not dictate supranational laws because its function is purely consultative. Its opinions, legislative projects and recommendations require presidential sanction in order to have effect. All the decisions and acts must be adopted by simple, absolute, special or qualified majority vote.

The subjects to be discussed have, in principle, a focus on social and labor matters, and they may also refer to commercial conflicts. Questions relating to the entry of new members to Mercosur and revisions to each member country’s constitution will also be debated in order to make the respective constitutions more similar.

This unicameral body, anticipated by the Asunción Treaty and defined by the Constitutive Protocol of the Mercosur Parliament, comprises the institutional structure of the block and replaces the Joint Parliamentary Commission.