For more than two decades, the European Union and Mercosur laboriously negotiated a trade deal they agreed but never signed, both sides want to finalize it to crEate a necessary partnership amid the global dispute between the United States and China.
by Mario Rabuffetti & Aldo Gamboa – AFP
For more than two decades, the European Union and Mercosur laboriously negotiated a trade deal, which they finally reached in 2019, but never signed, and are now seeking to finalize it to create a necessary partnership amid the global dispute between the United States and China, experts and diplomats consulted by AFP said.
“It is urgent and extremely necessary for Mercosur to reach an agreement with the EU”, said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on a visit to Uruguay at the end of January.
“We are going to intensify our discussions with the EU and sign that agreement, so that we can immediatley discuss an agreement between China and Mercosur”, he added, as Montevideo is already negotiating an FTA with Beijing, which has become a major commercial and financial player in Latin America.
On a visit to Argentina, German Chancelllor, Olaf Scholz, made the same point: “Our goal is to reach a rapid conclusion due to negotiations.
The 27 EU countries and the four Mercosur partners (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay) announced, with great fanfare in 2019, that the agreement was ready. But four years later, the pact, which ran-up against the refusal of the European agricultural sector and Mercosur’s competitiveness problems, making it difficult to cut high tariffs, remains a pipe dream.
THIRD PARTY IN CONTENTION
Analysts agree that the two blocs could gain in global prominence by concluding a trans-Atlantic free trade agreement (FTA).
European and Mercosur political sources agree that the delayed treaty is gaining momentum, but is not guaranteed, and point out that one way to speed-up the pace could be to agree on a “split” or thematic division, bringing together the aspects of the pact which can be approved directly by the European institutions, without going through the necessarily slow ratification in each of the 27 parliaments.
SOURCE: www.batimes.com.ar