The main force for the revival is the Foundation for Peace and Democracy in Central America, which organized a seminar in May 2004 as a preamble to the Presidents´ Summit Conference that occurred on June 30, 2004, in Guatemala.

One of the main results of this summit was a document creating a 60-day period in which the presidents of isthmus countries charged their foreign ministers with elaborating on a proposal for the transformation of the Central American Parliament.

The proposal for reforms brought immediate opposition from the president of Parlacen, Mario Facussé, who accused Costa Rica of being anti-integrationist and of having profited from this attitude in areas such as tourism. Facussé said that Costa Rica had no reason to toss around such proposals, since they are not even a part of the regional parliament.

The response from the Costa Rican government was cautious, and even left open the possibility of joining Parlecen, which it has been considering since the parliament's creation in 1987 and its start of operations in 1990.

Costa Rican Foreign Minister Roberto Tovar said that the country would study various proposals for reform of the regional organization.

"After seeing the results, a decision will be made, without having set a date for the eventual integration," he said.

In a manner reflecting the highs and lows experienced because of integration proposals on the political level, a wavering response to integration was encountered in the majority of the public sector.

This was demonstrated by a survey conducted in 2002 by CID-Gallup Latin America for the System of Central American Integration. As was predicted, the poorest opinions of this system came from Panama and Costa Rica, the countries most skeptical of the integration plan.

For example, when the general public was asked about their definition of integration, only 16 percent of those responding in Costa Rica mentioned the elimination of borders and 6 percent the elimination of passports. In Panama, those percentages were 24 percent and 12 percent, respectively, while in Guatemala the percentages were as high as 52 percent and 32 percent; in El Salvador they even reached 56 percent and 42 percent.

The foundation's proposal -- to reinforce what already exists, but change what is necessary -- focuses on redirecting the course of Central American integration. The institutions involved in the process should not be eliminated but rather reformed, said foundation President Rodrigo Madrigal Nieto.

As part of that the present and future roles of the two main regional institutions, the Central American Parliament and the Central American Court, were analyzed.

With respect to the regional parliament, the initiative proposes that, rather than being composed of only elected legislators as it is now, it should be integrated with representatives of the congresses of the region.

With respect to the Central American Court, the idea is to temporarily suspend its functions, since it is only currently integrated in two countries, and barely at that. After a given period, it would enter into deliberations that would permit the participation of all nations of the region.

Madrigal Nieto indicated that one of the new functions of the parliament would be to "homogenize" the laws of the region in areas of common interest, such as security, migration, education and the fight against terrorism, among others.

Foundation Executive Director Cecilia Cortés said that while Parlacen and the Central American Court do not have a real impact on integration, they consume most of the resources devoted to it.

"The worst part is that they consume between 60 and 70 percent of the resources that are earmarked for other organizations of the Central American system. We're talking about a million dollars annually in the case of Parlacen," she said.

Academic and diplomat Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera, technical manager of cross-border and security issues for the foundation, said there were concerns about the inability of the executive committee and the commission of technical secretaries of the System of Economic Integration to function correctly, and the lack of support received by the consultative committee of SICA.

"The general secretariat of SICA ought to be revised," he said, to better reflect what they do.

Solis clarified that this should only be done if SICA has sufficient resources with which to work.

"There is no such thing as a cheap integration. We ought to be able to count on a more active BCIE in the programs and projects of regional integration," he said.

Now that the process is being reconsidered, and given the reluctance of some states, perhaps Central America should opt for a less ambitious agenda of integration, one that is more precise and profound than the current version. Within that, issues of free commerce, migration and regional security could be emphasized.