Brussels, 27/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 27 November, the EU's trade ministers reviewed the free trade negotiations in Brussels between the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela), and gave the European Commission directions to follow for the next step towards exchanging market access offers. The recent election of Mauricio Macri as the new president of Argentina has revived hopes of concluding an agreement.
“This discussion with the ministers will enable the Commission to define the parameters better for the months and stages to come” with a view to exchanging market access offers, said Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn at the end of the meeting.
“This is an opportunity to assess for the first time in many years where we are in these important relations. The Commission will now try to answer a few of the questions that were raised, then decide accordingly what to do”, added the European commissioner for trade Cecilia Malmström.
On 11 June, the EU and Mercosur reaffirmed, at ministerial level, their commitment to concluding a free trade agreement and they agreed to proceed to an exchange of offers on market access (agriculture, industry, services and public procurement) when the conditions have been met. Malmström and Paraguay's foreign minister Eladio Loizaga reviewed these negotiations on 19 November after a technical level meeting in Asuncion at the start of October - which had enabled an exchange of additional information on the content of their respective offers.
On Friday, discussions between the EU's trade ministers showed that views in the EU differed over whether to move forward to an exchange of offers on the basis of the current South American offer. “Many countries support this, some have reservations, and a few others are reluctant”, said Asselborn, adding that “a certain direction” had come about and on which the Commission, Council and Parliament would now work. “The situation was not blocked but everything depends on how serious Mercosur's offer is”, he said. Asselborn added that “all the member states' representatives thought there was a fresh wind blowing from Latin America. The voters in some countries have made a choice which will perhaps allow us to hope that we might go in a better direction.”
“There was a very strong support to engage with Mercosur. But the issue was not start negotiations tomorrow or not. There were questions that were aside. We will try to answer these questions and also reach out to Mercosur. And then make an evaluation of the situation before a decision is made”, said Malmström.
According to an EU source, Malmström told ministers there were two options on the table - either to exchange offers with Mercosur now, on the basis or the offer proposed by the South American side (which covers 87% of its tariff lines compared with 91.5% of the EU's tariff lines); or to put pressure on Mercosur to improve its offer and bring it to 89% of its tariff lines, at the risk of it losing interest which would lead to another stalemate.
During the EU's ministers' discussions, several countries highlighted “the political change in Argentina [which] arouses hope that the new government might adopt a more open attitude”, the same source stated. Several member states also spoke of recent contact with Brazil - which says it is determined to conclude an agreement and is ready to improve the South American offer.
Three or four positions resulted from the Council on Friday. Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK said they supported an exchange of offers, stating that the South American offer could be improved.
Belgium and Malta suggested the idea of moving forward to an initial exchange of offers, which would give rise to another offer with a clause for short-term re-assessment.
Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Greece spoke of their reservations, with most of them underling their concerns on the agricultural level.
Stating their strong agricultural interests, France, Ireland and Poland were the most reluctant to move forward to an exchange of offers, believing that the South American offer was clearly not as ambitious as they expected. These countries were joined by Hungary, which underlined the strong asymmetry between the offers, and which called for a review of the 1999 negotiation mandate. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)