European and South American negotiators will meet again, in Brussels on 3-7 July, for the third round of negotiations for a free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – with Venezuela being suspended from the South American bloc).
Relaunched after the exchange of offers that took place in May 2016, the negotiations made progress at the last round of talks, in Buenos Aires at the end of March. The parties agreed to merge their negotiation text proposals into consolidated texts, and reached agreement on the text of the chapter on competition policy (see EUROPE 11755).
On 20 April, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Argentina's Foreign Affairs Minister Susana Malcorra confirmed their commitment to concluding an agreement by the end of 2017.
At the Agriculture Council on 12 June, several EU member states underlined the risks that the discussions with Mercosur are having on certain sensitive sectors, and they asked to be consulted before any new steps are taken (see EUROPE 11806).
Excluding sensitive agricultural sectors. At the European Parliament, French Social Democrats Eric Andrieu, Emmanuel Maurel, Jean-Paul Denanot and Louis-Joseph Manscour expressed alarm on Friday 30 June at the turn of the negotiations and they called for sensitive agricultural sectors to be excluded. "The exchange of tariff offers on the negotiating table is very imbalanced. It is not consistent to take into account our sensitive sectors – beef, poultry and pork, ethanol and speciality sugars – when our partners refuse to open their market to our offensive interests like wine, dairy products, barley and durum wheat. The Commission is proposing to reintroduce quotas for our sensitive sectors, although impact studies show the dangers of this agreement for our sensitive sectors”, they stated. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)