Brussels, 28/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - On an official visit to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay a few weeks before the third round of the negotiations for the association agreements between the EU and the Mercosur on the one hand (from the 7 to 10 November in Brazil), the EU and Chile on the other (the 13 November in Santiago), the European Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy, was extremely careful on the scope of the future liberalisation between the regional blocks. "How far must we go in this reciprocal liberalisation? As far as a free trade are in the sense of WTO Article XXIV, as suggests, though without saying so explicitly, the EU Council mandate, or as far as an intermediary stage? I will keep myself from choosing, as I see here food for thought for the Mercosur countries themselves", repeated the Commissioner in Buenos Aires and Santiago.
Drawing a huge framework for the stakes of the future round of multilateral negations in the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy notably insisted on the need to "make the liberalisation of trade fully compatible with the internal policies forming sustainable development". In line with this, the Commissioner invited the Mercosur countries and Chile to consider the impact of future liberalisation, both at a multilateral level as within the framework of a bilateral negotiation.
On the one side, "the Mercosur appears to the EU to be an enterprise of major modernisation at a continental scale, which opens to European operators new prospects for expansion of commercial trade and investments. These forecasts are of a nature to facilitate bilateral trade negotiations between the Mercosur and the EU as well as the multilateral liberalisation, ion the framework of the WTO". On the other said, noted the Commissioner, Argentine agriculture for example is ready to face competition, but it is not necessarily the case for industry and services. However, "it is in the sector as a whole, in the prospect of a necessary diversification of your economy, that it will be up to you to determine when you will be ready to confront without any tariff protections your major European partners and competitors, and eventually American if the FTAA see the light of day".
Questioned by the Argentine press on the delay that the EU/Mercosur could take on the American free trade area, Commissioner Lamy assured that the EU is not in competition with the Alca: "It is not a race", he announced. Furthermore, he underlined, the "Mercosur exports fo EUR 9 billion towards the European Union each year, against 2 billion towards the United States".
The controversial issue of agriculture was notably broached during the meeting between Mr Lamy and the Argentine Minister for External Relations, Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini. Argentina insisted "on the need to eliminate subsidies", indicated an Argentine press release. "The European Union is increasingly opening up", replied the Commissioner while underlining that "the export subsidies which represent more than half the 1992 agriculture budget have fallen to 9% of this budget".
Preceded by a statement from the Argentine authorities chastising the lack of interest shown by Europe for Latin America, the visit by Commissioner Lamy does not seem to have reassured the negotiators. In an interview to the Spanish daily "El Pais" on 28 September, the Argentine Minister for the Economy, Jose Luis Machinea, often returns to the lack of EU support for the Mercosur integration process, while underlining that the EU is presently "more preoccupied with Eastern Europe and the problems of North Africa, and that it always places greater emphasis on these regions". It is true, continues the Minister, "the EU (especially Spain) has heavily invested, but the trade developments are limited".