Brussels, 08/04/2016 (Agence Europe) -European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström and Uruguay's Minister for Trade Rodolfo Nin Novoa met in Brussels on Friday 8 April and discussed the next steps in the negotiating process for an EU-Mercosur free trade agreement. They also discussed a date for the exchange of offers on market access in the second week of May. Uruguay currently holds the rotating presidency of Mercosur.
“In the second week of May, the EU and Mercosur will exchange market access offers specifying ways to increase mutual openness to each other's goods and services, including access to public tenders”, the Commission stated at the end of Malmström's meeting with Nin Novoa. Their meeting also resulted in the adoption of “a roadmap for talks during the rest of the year”.
“I am glad we can now move forward with these longstanding negotiations. Europe has strong economic and political links with Latin America. Enhancing trade conditions between the EU and the countries of Mercosur would bring important economic benefits to our economies. Both sides are strongly committed, so I trust that the upcoming exchange of offers will allow us to successfully resume these talks towards an ambitious and comprehensive deal”, Malmström said.
On 11 June 2015, the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela - although Venezuela is not taking part in the current negotiations) reaffirmed their commitment at ministerial level to conclude their free trade talks. The talks began in 1999 and were then relaunched in 2010 after being put on ice for six years. The EU and Mercosur then agreed to move forward to an exchange of market access offers (goods and services, public procurement) as soon as conditions allowed (the exchange of offers has been postponed on numerous occasions since 2010).
The offer proposed by the South American side covers 87% of its tariff lines. The EU's offer covers 91.5% of the EU's tariff lines.
On Friday, the Commission did not mention any figure, simply stating that the objective of the EU side was “to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement, cutting customs duties, removing barriers to trade in services and improving rules related to public tenders, customs procedures, technical barriers to trade and protection of intellectual property”.
The agricultural part of the EU-Mercosur free trade negotiations nevertheless arouses concerns within the EU bloc, with some member states being reluctant to open their market for sensitive products (dairy products, pork, poultry, beef, fruit and vegetables).
Backed by 12 member states, France has requested a debate on this point at the Council of agriculture ministers in Luxembourg on 11 April. These 13 countries will oppose the proposals, in the EU offer, on quotas applied to sensitive products (see other article).
Bilateral trade in goods between the EU and Mercosur exceeded €88 billion in 2015, the European Commission stated on Friday, without giving detail on the trade balance.
EU exports to Mercosur have increased steadily over recent years, making the Latin American bloc the EU's sixth biggest export market. The EU, on the other hand, is Mercosur's top trading partner - a big supplier of services and the top foreign investor in the region, the Commission added, also stating that the EU's companies pay more than €4 billion in customs duties every year in order to export to Mercosur countries.
According to the data available on the website of DG Trade at the European Commission, bilateral EU-Mercosur trade in goods stood at €95.9 billion, including €51.3 billion in exports for the EU (in other words, a surplus of €6.7 billion for the EU). The EU's outgoing foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks stood at €348.8 billion in 2013, whilst Mercosur's FDI stocks entering the EU stood at €67.7 billion. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)