MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EU constitution “in no way changes” Falklands status

Foreign ministers from 17 Latin American nations are in Luxembourg Thursday, for talks with their European Union counterparts to create the world's biggest free-trade area.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said both sides agreed to hold fresh talks to set a ??new roadmap'' on negotiations. ??We have just decided there will be a ministerial conference,'' Ferrero-Waldner told reporters after the talks. ??We need to look at what comes next.''

Paraguay's Foreign Minister Leila Rachid de Cowles, speaking on behalf of the four nation group said Mercosur remained interested in sealing a free trade pact with the 25-nation EU. ??This is an agreement for which we have a lot of ambition,'' she said. ??We hope that negotiations can move forward in a positive way.''

Talks collapsed last October over nasty accusations lodged by both sides over failure to open key and sensitive market sectors to each other.

Mercosur wants greater access to European markets for beef, poultry and the lucrative services sector, while the EU says Mercosur is falling short of fully opening its industrial sector to Europe.

Ferrero-Waldner said the talks, which would be held between foreign ministers and trade officials, were not meant to present new trade offers, but to draft a new negotiating agenda. She said earlier Thursday that the EU hoped to make progress on a deal by the time of the Hong Kong ministerial World Trade Organization talks in December.

The two sides did not set a new deadline, however de Cowles said Mercosur ??hoped the next few years would bring it to satisfactory conclusion.''

A free trade pact with Europe is seen as key for the South American economic bloc to strengthen its bargaining position with the United States in any future trade talks with Washington.

The EU has questioned Mercosur's desire to continue talks however, noting failure of the grouping to lower internal trade barriers between its members.

De Cowles said however that there was ??a high degree of political will and commitment on the Mercosur side'' to continue the talks.

Trade between Mercosur and the EU totaled US$50 billion in 2003, most of it in agricultural goods. Negotiations on a free trade pact started between the two sides in 1999.

At the talks, Argentina also filed a complaint over the EU's new constitution which it argues unfairly lists the British controlled Falkland Islands as an ??overseas territory.''

??We explained our concern at the inclusion in the annexes of the treaty,'' said De Cowles.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency said however the proposed Constitution text ??in no way changes the position of the Falkland Islands.''