Brussels, 14/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - On 14 July, the European Commission tabled its offer on public procurement, giving Mercosur companies preferential access to EU markets. The Commission's move intends to inject dynamism in the negotiations over an Association Agreement. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said: “We have made ambitious proposals to open our market for trade in goods and in services and to create rules on investments, to which we now add government procurement. This is a clear a sign of our commitment to move full steam ahead. I hope Mercosur tables its proposal soon, so that we inject new dynamism in the negotiations”. At the most recent round of negotiations in Asunción (Paraguay) on 23 - 27 June 2003, Mercosur did not make any proposals on government procurement, contrary to the agreed work programme (decided in Rio de Janeiro).
The Commission says the EU's offer “is the largest offer ever proposed in a bilateral trade negotiations. It is a WTO + proposals in that it goes beyond the EU's engagements under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement”. It would give Mercosur companies access to the EU's lucrative government procurement market worth EUR 200 Billion or about 2.4 % of the EU GDP. The offer would allow Mercosur companies to participate at EU government procurement markets for goods, services and construction (but not humanitarian aid or arms) at preferential conditions over those applied by the EU to other WTO members.
For the moment Mercosur is refusing to shift in public procurement negotiations until the farming negotiations (where it wants greater concessions from the EU) have been concluded (see Europe of 28 June, p.10). Commission sources describe this as a “strategic position”, adding that the EU is prepared to make concessions in farming, but negotiations have to continue on both areas concurrently, in line with the agreed roadmap.
The EU is currently hoping to organise a meeting with Mercosur ministers in the last week of August to enter the final phase of the negotiations. The negotiations were on the agenda of meetings this week between Commissioner Lamy and the Brazilian trade minister Luiz Fernando Furlan, the Argentinian president Nestor Carlos Kirchner and the Argenintian foreign minister Rafael Antonio Bielsa.