Brussels, 08/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - In a letter to European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos on 2 April, Copa-Cogeca reiterates its strong opposition to the negotiations on bilateral trade liberalisation being re-opened as part of the association agreement between the EU and the Mercosur countries (see EUROPE 11072). Mercosur was created in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - with Venezuela becoming a full member in 2012.
The endless negotiations between the EU and Mercosur are not officially on the agenda of the EU trade ministers' meeting on Thursday 8 May (see other article) although the four countries are now ready to relaunch negotiations by presenting a joint offer of access to their markets. The EU's agricultural organisations are nevertheless against the talks being relaunched unless, they say, “the following prerequisites are met”: (1) the previous level of Brazilian and Argentine customs duties is re-established on fruit and vegetables after these duties were increased in 2012; (2) the South American market is truly opened to EU dairy products, as Brazil once imposed an anti-dumping duty of over 14%; (3) a Community import quota for zebu meat is created so as “to guarantee a sufficient level of transparency” after European consumers' recent crisis of confidence on meat labelling; (4) the embargo on imports of EU beef is lifted in Brazil, where a new atypical case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) has just been registered.
The EU's agricultural cooperatives and organisations recall that Mercosur already supplies “more than 70%” of Community imports of beef and poultry. “We believe that the negotiations between Mercosur and the European Union are not being held on a level playing field, as Mercosur does not have an integrated single market, such as the one that exists in the European Union. European agricultural products cannot circulate in the same way as products from Mercosur countries”, Copa-Cogeca's letter states. (LC)