Argentina and the EU countries participating in the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Buenos Aires on Sunday 22 July have confirmed their political resolve to conclude the talks for a free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) in the coming months.
Spanish news agency EFE reported that Argentina's Finance Minister Nicolás Dujovne met Spain's Economy Minister Nadia Calviño and Italy's Economy and Finance Minister Giovanni Tria on Saturday 21 July to push the talks forward.
An EU-Mercosur trade agreement "would be a great opportunity for all the actors. Following the example of the agreement between the EU and Japan, concluding an agreement in the coming months would be very good news", Calviño said at the end of the G20 finance ministers' meeting (see other article).
"This is about a vast agreement involving very different trade blocs. It is not surprising that we should be meeting difficulties. But there has been progress in recent months. We should not focus on the obstacles but on the confirmation of our resolve to engage in dialogue", Calviño stated.
"We are in favour of the agreement. There are some requirements which need to be taken on agriculture and livestock, for example. We should be able to fulfil them from both sides. Now we are waiting for the South American countries to find an agreement between themselves, and come back to us so that we can move forward", France's Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said.
Austria's Secretary of State for Finance Hubert Fuchs stated that the US threat to apply new customs tariffs "could accelerate the negotiations" between Europe and the South American bloc.
In an interview with Argentinian daily newspaper La Nación, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond gave assurances that "the United Kingdom continues to support the ambitious trade agenda of the European Union and will remain a constructive partner in support of the EU's free trade agreements, including the EU-Mercosur negotiations".
"It is essential to maintain the momentum and achieve a quick political agreement and we hope that this happens soon. Of course, the United Kingdom will be open to (Ed: post-Brexit) talks with Mercosur", Hammond said.
Following a round of talks on the technical level that enabled limited progress, in the first two weeks of July, an EU-Mercosur ministerial meeting in Brussels on 18 and 19 July only took stock of the progress achieved since the start of 2018 (see EUROPE 12067).
At the end of this meeting, Argentina's Finance Minister Jorge Faurie said he thought the two parties could reach an agreement by mid September.
While this meeting "confirmed the strong political commitment to reach an agreement (...) it is still too early to say when it could be concluded", the European Commission commented, saying that "much work remains to be done" on the EU's offensive interests – cars and spare parts, geographical indications, maritime services and dairy products. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)