Brussels, 24/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - A few days ahead of the Summit between the European Union and Latin America in Guadalajara (Mexico), the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) exchanged their respective commercial offers on Friday, with a view to creating a free-trade area by October (see other article). In Brussels on Monday, the Agriculture Ministers of the Member States of the EU took stock of the dossier and France, supported by some of the other delegations, repeated its criticism of the European Commission's preferred strategy.
In the agricultural sector, the Commission proposed import tariff quotas on a range of "sensitive" products from the Mercosur countries. These quotas would be open partly under this regional agreement, and the rest in light of results of the WTO negotiations on the Doha Agenda. Over the working lunch, the French Agriculture Minister, Hervé Gaymard repeated that as far as France is concerned, "there is no time-table tyranny" for the conclusion of WTO negotiations, and stressed that "the Mercosur negotiations should be subordinate to those at the WTO, and not the other way round".
The annual quotas proposed by the Commission are as follows: 500,000 tonnes of bioethanol, a fuel derived from sugar cane (over 500,000 in a WTO context); - 400,000 tonnes of maize (over 300,000 tonnes); - 100,000 tonnes of low-quality wheat (plus the same with the WTO); - 20,000 tonnes of rice (plus the same again); - 10,000 tonnes of cheese (plus 10,000 tonnes at the WTO); 2,000 tonnes of butter (and a further 2,000 tonnes at the WTO); 6,500 tonnes of powdered milk (plus the same quantity); - 50,000 tonnes of high-quality beef (plus 50,000 with the WTO); - 37,500 tonnes of poultry products (plus the same again under the WTO); - 6,000 tonnes of pork products (plus 5,000); - 30,000 tonnes of bananas.
The Commission has also offered Mercosur a 50% reduction in customs duties for some 300 processed products, such as fruit juice and biscuits, and free access to the Community market in ten years, for a range of products (high-quality cereals, malt, wine, eggs and flowers)/
In exchange for the EU's agricultural concessions, the Mercosur countries are prepared to liberalise nearly 90% of trade with the EU, with the exception of certain capital goods and machine tools. Mercosur also considerably expanded its proposal to open up services including part of the financial sector, insurance, telecommunications and maritime transport. In the field of investments, Mercosur proposes "greater predictability", and "legal foreseeable nature", according to a source quoted by AFP. On public procurement, Mercosur insists on transparency, but does not want equality of access between European entrepreneurs and those from the Mercosur countries, still according to AFP information.