EU-Mercosur deal: Is the agreement a threat to European agriculture? - by Sofía S.Manzanaro

Twenty years after negotiations began, the European Union and the South American trade bloc Mercosur reached a free-trade agreement on Friday. Deemed "historic" by European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, both sides currently trade over €88 billion in goods and €34 billion in services each year.

However, the treaty has not satisfied all member states. While French President Emmanuel Macron said it was a "good agreement" that met key French demands, other factions in France did not agree.

France is the EU's largest farming power. French farmers' groups and environmentalists have regularly raised concerns about the risk of a surge in South American agricultural exports to Europe. In addition, critics argue there are lower standards for produce in the Mercosur countries and insist that they would oppose the deal unless they see proper traceability and good livestock practices in the beef sector.

"We won't have an accord at any price. The story isn't finished," agriculture minister Didier Guillaume told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Read more at: 
EU-Mercosur deal: Is the agreement a threat to European agriculture? | Euronews

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EU in Latin America trade push – by Iana Dreyer of EurActiv

On 11 March, the EU and Cuba finalised negotiations towards a Political Cooperation and Dialogue Agreement, ending more than a decade of political ostracism for the Caribbean state.

Negotiations long believed dead between the European bloc and Mercosur are about to be revived, the planned launch of a modernisation process for a fifteen year old agreement with Mexico is generally considered a matter of months, if not weeks away, and a similar move is in the pipeline with Chile.

The EU-Cuba agreement is “historic”, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said. The deal “opens a legal framework for our economic cooperation, policy dialogues, but also much more than that. It opens up perspectives for major engagements for all”. The EU has also taken the opportunity to call on the US to end its trade embargo on Cuba, which has extra-territorial reach, and thus harms EU businesses. “I also publicly raised the issue [when in Havana on 11 March]. The embargo policy of the US is outdated,”  Mogherini said.

The EU’s High Representative was in Argentina a few days before her trip to Cuba, and made it official in Buenos Aires that a deal with the South Americans was on its way, with an exchange of tariff offers expected for April this year.

“What I see in Mercosur today is a very strong commitment to exchange offers and start negotiations for real.

And I think this is a political opportunity that we cannot miss,” Mogherini said. There is also a “clear recognition that the exchange of offers is a starting point for negotiations, a basis for potential improvements”, she said, adding that the EU needs to “start negotiations immediately before the window closes”.

Federica Mogherini set out the EU’s expectations with the coming trade negotiations with Chile and Mexico. The coming upgrade should end up with deals that are “comparable to CETA with Canada and TTIP with United States”, she said.

Chile’s Ambassador to the European Union, Carlos Appelgren, said that the results of the country’s 2003 FTA with the EU “have been extraordinarily successful. Bilateral trade has increased by a rate of 9% per year, growing from $7 billion in 2002 to more than $21 billion in 2014”, Appelgren stressed.

The Chilean envoy noted that since 2013, the European Union had posted a trade surplus with Chile. EU foreign direct investment is dominant in Chile, accounting for 34 percent of FDI stocks in the Andean country, and is focused on mining, services and infrastructure.

For the coming negotiations, the ambassador cited “liberalisation of remaining tariff barriers, covering 2 percent [of tariff lines]”, public procurement, sustainable development, the gender dimension of trade, and services as Santiago’s priorities. He said there are plans for a “robust agreement on investment to overcome the fifteen BITs” Chile has signed with individual EU member states. Santiago also aims to simplify rules of origin, tackle non-tariff barriers to trade, trade defence and competition.

Mexican Ambassador to the EU, Cesar Guera, said that the modernisation of the commercial pillar of the EU-Mexico Association Agreement of 200/2001 would include, “among other topics: liberalisation of agriculture goods, reform of rules of origin, with special focus on cumulation with common [FTA] partners, and seek to increase transparency and cooperation in sanitary and phytosanitary [issues]”.

In services, the goal would be to lock in recent Mexican reforms in telecommunications, finance and energy. Guera also said the deal should aim to protect investments “to the highest standards, taking into account the new focus of the EU on the topic”, in reference to the European Union’s investment court proposal to replace investment arbitration to settle disputes between investors and host states.

“Mexico hopes to start shortly with the broad and ambitious modernisation of the agreement with the EU. Both sides are highly prepared to take that important step.”

Mexico and Chile are parties to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Asia-Pacific trade agreement clinched in 2015 under US aegis. Mexico, a member of NAFTA, is also seeking to upgrade its relationship with the EU after TTIP and the recently concluded CETA, agreements which could harm Mexico if no complementary measures are taken.

The EU concluded FTAs with Peru and Colombia in 2012/2013, and is finalising the inclusion of  Ecuador into the Peru/Colombia deal.

EU-Digest

Mercosur pushes for early EU trade pact

Latin America's Mercosur trade bloc is impatient for progress on free-trade talks with the European Union to lead to an early agreement, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said.

Brazil has been in the forefront of Mercosur pronouncements on the increasingly contentious talks for reaching a free-trade pact. The negotiations are snagged on European farm industries' fears about a flood of Latin American produce and Mercosur partners' often mercurial behavior toward European exports to the region.

Argentina drew angry rejoinders from Europe over what EU officials called restrictive trade measures that led to imports from Europe being blocked, delayed or made more expensive by stinging taxation, all of which Brussels branded as running counter to the spirit of the according being negotiated.

For more: Mercosur pushes for early EU trade pact - UPI.com

Mercosur to discuss EU trade, Colombia-Venezuela spat

South American leaders were to meet Tuesday in the Argentine provincial capital San Juan at the Mercosur summit to discuss a trade agreement with the European Union and a showdown between Colombia and Venezuela. Relations between the South American neighbours reached a new low last month after Colombia accused Venezuela of harbouring leftist FARC rebels. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez then cut off diplomatic relations with Bogota and accused Colombia of attempting to incite a war. Presidents Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Jose Mujica of Uruguay, Sebastian Pinera of Chile and Evo Morales of Bolivia were also expected to attend Tuesday's meetings.

For more: Mercosur to discuss EU trade, Colombia-Venezuela spat | Earth Times News

Mercopress:Forget Mercosur, sign trade accord with EU says Brazil Industry

For the complete report from Mercopress click on this link

Forget Mercosur, sign trade accord with EU says Brazil Industry

A leading number of Brazilian businessmen belonging to the country’s powerful National Confederation of Industry, CNI, said it was time to sign a bilateral agreement with the European Union, --which would leave out Mercosur--, according to press reports in O Estado de Sao Paulo. CNI president Armando Montero Neto said Brazil must adopt a more “ambitious” position regarding trade agreements with the European Union. This week Rio do Janeiro hosted the two day EU/Brazil summit where it was agreed that both parties must speak “with one voice” in the coming Group of 20 major economies meeting on April in London. “Mercosur has become partly paralyzed and the feeling is that Brazil is shackled with limited movements; Brazil must reach bilateral agreements, Mercosur’s time is up, long overdue”, said Luiz Furlan president of the Sao Paulo based food group Sadia in an interview with O Estado de Sao Paulo.