Brussels, 17/09/2010 (Agence Europe) - European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht hopes to conclude a free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of joining) before the summer of 2011. Currently visiting Brazil and Argentina, from 13 to 16 September, the commissioner was less than pleased by the warning delivered by French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire. “The Commission does the negotiating, and it has to be respected. The French position is well-known - it's the same as it always says,” De Gucht said in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. “Farmers are not bargaining chips. We won't go any further in talks with the WTO. We won't go any further in talks with Mercosur,” Le Maire had warned the previous day, adding that “Europe is not the dumping ground for the agricultural produce of South American countries”. The French minister's comments also drew criticism from the South Americans. Speaker of the Argentine parliament and former head of the Argentine Rural Confederations Ricardo Buryaile said on Wednesday that “Europe is conducting a protectionist policy that is harmful to agricultural countries”. It is very difficult to conceive of Europe as dumping site for Mercosur agricultural produce given how small its share of the European market is (only 4%), Uruguay's Foreign Minister Luis Almagro noted. Talks on an EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, launched in 1995, were suspended in 2004, before being resumed at the EU-Latin America summit in mid-May of this year. A second round of talks is scheduled for October, following the round in Buenos Aires in June. (E.H./transl.rt)