MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

LatAm leaders seeking better European market access in Vienna

Latin American government leaders are heading for Austria this week for a summit with EU leaders featuring an agenda dedicated primarily to economic matters, with better access to the rich European market high on the list of the visitors' priorities.

The European leaders are expected to hear a great deal about their nations' hefty subsidies of their farmers, something the Latin Americans view as unfair and detrimental to their economies, especially those of big food producers like Argentina and Brazil.

The free trade accords between the EU and the Central American, Mercosur and Andean Community economic blocs, the elimination of European agricultural subsidies and various energy matters will take up a good bit of the Vienna meeting.

The controversy sparked by Bolivia's recent nationalization of its energy sector will permeate the summit to be held this Thursday and Friday, but the presidents hope to leave the Austrian capital with some kind of concrete political results.

Brazil, South America's top economy, will take advantage of the meeting to defend its trade interests and wants to achieve free trade pacts both in its negotiations with the World Trade Organization and in the EU-Mercosur talks, diplomatic officials have said.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hopes that the summit will result in the relaunching of negotiations between the EU and Mercosur, which have been stalled for months, and that the South American economic bloc will speak with a single voice at the forum. In addition, Lula will reaffirm the position of the Group of 20, which Brazil heads along with India and South Africa, to dismantle the European countries' agricultural subsidies.

The same theme will be played upon by the delegation from Paraguay, whose foreign minister, Leila Rachid, said that her country will not deviate from the "position of the bloc" that a future pact between the two regions must be "a comprehensive - not a separate - package." Rachid said that there are "a series of question marks" surrounding the economic-trade negotiations, but in the political area - the second of the EU negotiations' so-called three pillars, which also include cooperation - there are "possibilities of signing" a useful agreement.

In the Southern Cone, Chile is a different case because since 2002 it has had an accord in place with Brussels governing its political and economic association, as well as cooperation, although Santiago also wants to achieve more equitable trade across the Atlantic. Chile wants to push for including the energy sector and social policies in the accord, especially matters relating to education, poverty reduction and the reform of the pension system. Last week, Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley met with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and told him that Chile was going to reaffirm its political closeness with Europe and suggest exchanging experiences about the regional processes of economic integration.

From the Andean Community, or CAN, one hears a similar message, despite the fact that the bloc is coming to the summit burdened by Venezuela's recent announcement that it will withdraw from it.

Amid doubts about the road that Bolivia will follow, the other three CAN members - Colombia, Peru and Ecuador - have not given up on the possibility of striking an accord with the EU, and they are hoping "to expand their horizons and explore the broadening of commercial ties," in the words of Ecuadorian President Alfredo Palacio.

It is expected that negotiations between the EU and the CAN will be opened, but in Brussels the European Commission warned several days ago that "things are not ready" because of the Andean disarray.

Possibly for that reason, Colombia and Peru have opted to lower expectations and are pushing for a more political focus at the summit with an agenda including the anti-drug fight, terrorism, human rights and making progress on immigration matters.

Central America is more unified and its Economic Integration System, known as SICA, will go to Vienna seeking "an agreement to begin the negotiation of a free trade treaty with the EU starting with joint planning," according to the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry.

"That agreement would help us to diversify markets and not to concentrate on a single buyer, but to be able to have a little more leeway when there are other countries that have free trade treaties," said Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Norman Caldera.

Besides that question, Panama will emphasize its interest in attracting European capital and companies to participate in its project to expand the Panama Canal. "We're interested in having Europe in the project," said Panama's ambassador to the EU, Pablo Garrido, who added that his government was confident it could count on European participation "not as a donor, but on the level of businessmen."

The message of regional economic integration will be defended especially tenaciously by Mexico, which has signed 42 free trade treaties with other countries or regional blocs and which is promoting integration as a mechanism for achieving Latin American economic development.