Brussels, 11/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 11 June, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström and the trade ministers from the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela) met in Brussels on the sidelines of the EU-Latin America and Caribbean summit in order to work on an exchange of market access offers for the last quarter of 2015.
“We discussed the way forward with the ministers of the five countries of Mercosur. We had a very positive meeting and we are all committed to making real progress. We are on both sides committed to the objective of concluding a comprehensive and balanced trade agreement”, Malmström told press at the end of the meeting.
“The next steps in this will be an exchange of market access offers. In order to do this successfully, we need still to do some groundwork. We need to provide each other with the reassurances about the level of ambition of our respective offers and answer some technical questions. We have tasked our chief negotiators to speed up and to engage even more in this phase of exploring and trying to get as many answers as possible”, Malmström stated. “Provided that we are comfortable with the answer and the technical process moves on, we hope that we will have a possibility to exchange those offers by the end of the year”, she added.
Before the exchange of offers, the parties will try to clarify their positions on certain negotiation chapters - such as geographical indications, tariff lines, the scope of the agreement and certain sanitary and phytosanitary issues.
The EU and Mercosur have been negotiating an agreement, including a free trade agreement, since 1999. After being on ice for six years, the talks were relaunched in 2010. The exchange of market access offers - which cover agricultural and industrial products, services and government procurement - has been greatly delayed since the commitment taken at ministerial level in January 2013.
“Trade between the EU and Mercosur was at 104 billion last year, but EU imports from Mercosur are declining - so a free trade agreement would help to overcome the barriers between us in all areas. We are, from the EU side, committed to a strong relationship and a free trade agreement would be an important step on this path”, Malmström concluded.
Alongside Malmström, Brazil's Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira affirmed Mercosur's commitment to an agreement. “The EU is the biggest trading partner for Mercosur and Brazil. We want to increase Mercosur's exports to the EU and to strengthen our trade. We must have an ambitious agreement covering all the areas of interest for both parties”, he said, promising that Brazil - which will take over the rotating presidency of Mercosur on 17 July - would work to stimulate the discussion process, with a view to an exchange of market access offers “in the last quarter of 2015”.
In response to questions from the press about Argentina's active participation in the talks process, Vieira tried to flag up the unity of the South American bloc. “We told the European party very clearly that our market access offer is an offer on behalf of four of the bloc's countries - Venezuela will not sign the agreement for the moment as it is still in the accession process to Mercosur”, Vieira said. “Today, we have said that Mercosur is ready. I believe it's clear that the two blocs are committed to following the negotiations and to concluding them in the framework of the conditions laid down”, he stated. (Emmanuel Hagry)