MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mercosur-EU “joint assessment” in Brasilia.

Mercosur member country ministers will be meeting this Sunday in Brasilia with European Union Trade Commissar Pascal Lamy for a “joint assessment” of the difficult bilateral negotiations, said Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Celso Amorim.

"We're going to look to see if there's something new that can make possible advancing negotiations" confirmed Mr. Amorim. The gathering is in anticipation of the formal Mercosur-EU technical meeting scheduled for next Monday in Brussels, Belgium.

Talks between the two groups remain stalled since last August and are in peril of not reaching the self imposed conclusion deadline of October.

Earlier in the week EU Agriculture Commissar Franz Fischler said there were no guarantees that the agreement could be reached in the few weeks left for the deadline.

Negotiations remain stagnant because of Mercosur disappointment with the EU market access proposal for agriculture produce and the EU similarly argues about insufficient concessions regarding services and government purchasing.

Next November the European Community new authorities will be taking office and the idea is to have an agreement wrapped up by then.

Brazil rejected criticisms that it was responsible for the current "inaction" arguing that "we can't say yes to everything because we have a complex economy, and let me add that our government's objective is to effectively seal an agreement with the EU", underlined Mr. Amorim.

Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Didier Opertti said "we're not banging tables or closing doors", but negotiations have been ongoing since 1995 when the political cooperation, trade and economic agreement was signed.

However Mr. Opertti admitted that "currently all eyes are set in the Doha round of multilateral international negotiations" for world trade liberalization, "and maybe that is the track to follow" to achieve improved access for South American agriculture produce to industrialized countries' markets.