INTEGRAÇÃO MILITAR NO MERCOSUL: À LUZ DO EXEMPLO EUROPEU

Abstract

The Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a South American regional integration project, was created with a primarily economic and commercial focus, similar to other regional blocs. With the advance of globalization and the emergence of new multilateral agendas, other integration models such as the European Union began to regionalize issues related to security and defense, reaching a higher level of institutionalization. Mercosur, however, has not followed the same pace or direction, showing institutional and legal limitations in developing a common defense policy. This raises the following question: is it possible to conceive a common defense policy within the bloc? Based on this question, this monograph aimed to analyze Mercosur's normative, political, and institutional documents in order to understand its limitations and po tential in this field and to offer a grounded answer. As a partial result, structural weak nesses were identified, such as the absence of binding norms, the lack of defense oriented institutions, and the intergovernmental nature of regional diplomacy, which hinder the advancement of a common security agenda. Therefore, this research seeks to contribute to the debate on the feasibility and possible paths toward effective military cooperation in the Mercosur context.