On Monday 10 April, the European Commission published its report on the progress made in the second round (since May 2016) of EU-Mercosur free-trade talks which took place in Buenos Aires from 20 to 25 March and also the texts of its proposals tabled at that meeting.
The progress report on the negotiations on the trade chapter of the association agreement between the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) details the progress made by the 15 working groups in trade in goods; rules of origin; customs and trade facilitation; technical barriers to trade; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; trade defence instruments; subsidies; dispute settlement; services and establishment; public procurement; intellectual property, including geographical indications); competition, trade and sustainable development; SMEs; and institutional affairs.
At the Buenos Aires round, the parties agreed to merge their proposals into consolidated texts and, in the area of competition, reached provisional agreement on a full text (see EUROPE 11755).
On Monday, the Commission also published the texts of the latest proposals tabled by the EU, covering trade and sustainable development, transparency, access to energy and raw materials, along with an annex on technical obstacles to trade in the automotive sector and a proposal on agriculture, including provisions on bilateral and multilateral cooperation, wines and spirits.
The two sides agreed to meet again in Brussels in July. An inter-sessional round of talks on the trade chapter will take place in Buenos Aires at the end of May.
EU-Mercosur free-trade talks have been back on track since the exchange of respective offers on market access (covering goods, services and public procurement) in May 2016 (see EUROPE 11549).
The progress report and the textual proposals are available at: https://goo.gl/lyUdym (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)