MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Germany committed to an EU/Mercosur trade agreement said Merkel

The German Chancellor and Uruguayan president Jose Mujica

The European Union will seek to further discussions over a trade deal with Mercosur at the upcoming G20 summit in Cannes in November announced on Tuesday German Chancellor Angela Merkel alongside visiting Uruguayan president Jose Mujica.

The EU and Mercosur have been trying for years to draw up a free trade deal that would encompass 750 million people and commerce worth 125 billion dollars a year. Talks were re-launched in 2010, but unresolved issues dashed hopes of reaching a deal by the middle of this year.

“Uruguay is a country that has a big interest in deepening Mercosur cooperation with Europe, and I said the EU also has a strategic interest, so we will do everything on the sidelines of G20 summit” to bring the negotiations forward, Merkel said.

A trade deal would be beneficial for the EU said Merkel who anticipated she would be addressing the issue with Mercosur ‘heavy weights’ Brazil and Argentina at the G20 summit.

The Uruguayan president said that Mercosur is anxious to diversity its trade which is increasingly dependent on the Asian economies, most of which are mainly interested in commodities and not necessarily manufactured goods.

Although the world is not going through the most favourable of climates for free trade, Mujica said “my government will continue to push for Mercosur and free trade as a strategic long term objective”.

“We want to diversity our foreign trade and we believe that the best way to maintain and sustain our independence is a wise interdependency with the globalized world and not a specific region or countries”.

Further on the underlined that Uruguay had not come to Germany to request for loans or credits, but rather for investments and investors from German corporations “to help improve the living conditions and education of our people”.

“We shall discuss for example about veterinarian knowledge of which Germany is leading nation in the world, which could be very useful for Mercosur and its cattle and meat industry”, said Mujica.

At the press conference Ms. Merkel also announced that European Union leaders would make an important step at their upcoming summit towards solving the debt crisis, but more steps would be necessary.

“The EU summit is an important step but further steps will follow because this is about overcoming a sovereign debt crisis” Merkel told a news conference in Berlin.

“These sovereign debts have been built up over decades and therefore one cannot resolve them with one summit but it will take difficult, long-term work”.

“Nonetheless, I do think we will also be able to take relevant, important decisions,” Merkel said.