On Friday 9 March, Paraguay's Foreign Affairs Minister Eladio Loizaga said he hoped an agreement on the trade section of an association agreement between the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) could be concluded "in three to four weeks". Paraguay is currently chairing Mercosur.
Despite the lack of breakthrough at the end of the last session of technical level negotiations, in Asunción from 20 February to 2 March (see EUROPE 11973), "there is still a political resolve to move ahead", Loizaga assured, as reported by the EFE news agency. He also said that Mercosur wanted "a balanced agreement that takes account of the sensitivities of the Latin American bloc and not only those of the Europeans".
"Certain questions remain open", Loizaga added, saying he was confident as to the possibility of finding solutions to settle these questions. "A treaty of this nature can be revised after four or five years in order to see if progress has been made and if we are able to progress more on relieving customs duties that must be agreed on both sides", he said.
Loizaga will address this issue in Asunción on 16 March with his Mercosur counterparts at the launch of the free trade talks between the Latin American bloc and Canada.
The European and South American negotiators are continuing their discussions by video-conference. No date for a new session of technical level talks has yet been fixed, a European Commission source told EUROPE on Friday. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)