MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU-Mercosur Brussels meeting.

European Union and Mercosur ministers will be meeting this week in Brussels, Belgium in an attempt to rescue the strategic association agreement that has been seriously conditioned following the collapse of the September World Trade Organization round in Mexico.

EU anticipated it wishes to re-formulate the final agenda leading to the conclusion of negotiations. However Mercosur sources indicated that the outcome of talks will much depend on a "substantial improvement" regarding markets access.

Mercosur has long stated that the EU must present a list of "sensitive" products that is agriculture, with significant tariff reductions. EU has promised an "innovative" proposal and recalls that Mercosur still has to address the "government purchasing" chapter.

Nevertheless delegates from both blocks admit that the pace of negotiations will be very much conditioned by the timetable progress in the United States sponsored Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA.

"If the hemispheric agreement really takes off, for the EU political reasoning will be stronger than actual trade interests. Europe must position itself with Mercosur before FTAA is concluded", said a Uruguayan diplomatic source.

Besides EU investors and companies can't let the Americans have the upper hand in Mercosur if FTAA really manages to keep to its 2005 goal.

Given this scenario, Brazilian Foreign Secretary Celso Amorim and EU Foreign Affairs representative Chris Patten recently indicated that the two blocks could establish an agenda of final rounds and a target date for the agreement, possibly in the second half of 2004.