Saving Money Creates Unusual Alliances

Despite the general antipathy Argentina and Brazil have for each other on the football pitch, according to Andrés Oppenheimer the two nations are considering using the same facilities for their consulates in Boston:

Brazil's ambassador to the United States, Roberto Abdenur, and his Argentine counterpart, José Octavio Bordón, went to the State Department to seek permission to open a joint consulate in Boston as a way to save money on real estate, security costs and personnel.

Argentina had closed its consulate in Boston because of budget cuts. And Brazil had closed its consulate in Hamburg, Germany, for the same reason. So the two governments -- which lead the Mercosur trade agreement of South American countries -- recently decided to invite one another to share the consular facilities where they no longer had a diplomatic presence.

''We're not talking about a joint diplomatic mission, but of two consulates within the same facilities,'' Brazil's ambassador to Washington told me in a telephone interview. ``It's a pilot project. If it goes well, we will try to take advantage of similar opportunities elsewhere.''

Read the article. Oppenheimer has some other good ideas in there as well.