Brussels, 30/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The rumours about Argentina's foreign minister, Hector Timerman, saying at a ministerial meeting of Mercosur countries last week that Argentina was “reluctant” and had “reserves” about the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement have cast doubt over the upcoming outcome of talks on this. The rumours of Timerman's comments come ahead of a technical level meeting between the two parties on 1-2 October, which is to test the level of ambition of the respective offers for market access.
A meeting of the foreign ministers of the Mercosur bloc - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela (the latter nevertheless not participating in the talks) - that took place in Asuncion last week shed light on the continuing differences of view within the South American bloc as regards the free trade talks with the EU. These talks were started in 1999, put on hold at the end of 2004, and relaunched in 2010.
According to diplomatic sources, reported by South Atlantic news agency MercoPress on 25 September, Argentina adopted a “very defensive attitude” at this “long meeting” - with Timerman underling his country's “reserves” and that Buenos Aires was “reluctant” as regards the EU being ready to make its offer on market access.
The chief EU and Mercosur negotiators will meet on the technical level in Asuncion on 1-2 October in order to assess the firmness of the two blocs' offers on market access. This is with a view to moving on to an exchange of views on these offers before the end of 2015, as both sides said they wanted when they were at a trade ministers meeting on the sidelines of the EU-Latin America summit on 11 June. The next step in the plan would be a political meeting in November, in order to bring the positions closer together. The offers on market access cover agricultural and industrial products, services and public procurement.
Hosting the meeting in Asuncion last week, Paraguay's foreign minister Eladio Loizaga gave assurances that there was “much” expectation about the future meeting. He said that it was “the right time and a unique opportunity to move forwards in the negotiations that have been on ice for too long”, and he added “I believe we have progressed enormously”. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)