MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU interpreted Mercosur as a “fragile” block.

Argentina's decision to restrict imports of Brazilian home equipment harmed the current trade and cooperation negotiations between Mercosur and the European Union, said Brazilian Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues during a business forum in Sao Paulo.

However, Mr. Rodrigues pointed out that "this is a personal opinion, not the Brazilian government's position".

According to Brazilian press reports Argentina's decision to impose barriers to bilateral trade with Brazil, made the EU visualize Mercosur as a "fragile" block.

"It's my personal opinion that on looking at the situation the EU considered there was no internal consensus in Mercosur and this could end blocking negotiations", said Mr. Rodrigues.

Mercosur and EU representatives interrupted last week in Brussels a round of negotiations in preparation for a trade and cooperation understanding by next October. But since then recriminations from both sides have flown accusing each other of the failure so far of the negotiations which remain stalled.

Mercosur delegates allege they had to leave the negotiation table following European inflexibility regarding the latest market access offer for farm produce, which is the main attraction and target of the South American block.

Nevertheless Mr. Rodrigues said he was hopeful about the resumption of Mercosur-EU talks since "this is a temporary situation and we will overcome our differences".

But Mr. Rodrigues was not so optimistic about the current crucial World Trade Organization talks in Geneva and anticipated if any a very general, non specific document. "A possible agreement in WTO is hard to see because of such divergent interests. We might achieve a very general document, without numbers or specifics, since there's not much time left", underlined the Brazilian official.