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A Fresh Start for Mercosur: Ouro Preto II, or the Onset of Political Reforms Despite recurrent trade disputes among member states, the political aspect of Mercosur is making headway. The arrival in power of progressive forces in favor of integration in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay hasenabled the integration process, severely hampered by Argentinaâ??s economic crisis in 2001, to get a fresh start. The Mercosur Parliament, set up by the 27th Mercosur summit on December 17, 2004, to be inaugurated in 2006, will probably prove not to be the instrument for a democratization of the integration process imagined by the Technical Secretariat, a veritable ???political entrepreneur??? created within Mercosur in 2003, but it will enable politicians of the various Mercosur member states to participate more fully and will especially breathe new life into the political aspect of integration.