Colombian-Venezuelan Border Integration: The Utopia of the Táchira State and the Department of Norte de Santander

Abstract

The paper discusses the integration process of the Colombian‑ Venezuelan frontier in 2005, which included the regions of Táchira and Norte de Santander, as an experience initially made in the legal framework of the Andean Community of Nations (Spanish: Comunidad Andina de Naciones, CAN). Decision 501 facilitates the creation of a border integration zone – BIZ – that would contribute to and strengthen the border development, in an area that has juridical, administrative and functional conducive conditions. For this reason, a Border Integration Zone – BIZ – would help counteract backwardness and make possible a number of joint regional projects that would give support to integration. The study shows a retrospective analysis of binational discussion topics as far as it was possible within the dialogue, and before the obstacles that stopped the way which concluded with the cancellation of the negotiation rounds in 2008. At the same time, it considers the Venezuelan role afterward Colombia had signed the free trade agreement with the US, and the perception of this fact by the border inhabitants of Táchira state. In a reality that the development perspectives, based in markets integration, are not clear inside the Venezuelan geopolitics to become part of the process.