MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rousseff claims EU has yet to agree on a proposal to exchange with Mercosur

“Stop blaming us because we are ready, we have our proposal ready”, Rousseff told the lobby of Brazilian farmers

President Dilma Rousseff claimed before the Brazil's farmers lobby that the trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union is stalled and is not fulfilled because of the 'resistance' from several European countries, and specifically named France, Hungary and Ireland.

 “Let them stop blaming us because we are ready, we have our proposal”. said Rousseff referring to the Mercosur tariff reduction proposal to be exchanged with the EU, and which are needed to resume negotiations for a trade deal with negotiations that have been going on and off for the last fifteen years.

Rousseff who is bidding re-election next 5 October participated in an event sponsored by the powerful Agriculture National Confederation, CNA, and which also included the presence of her two main rivals, Aecio Neves and Eduardo Campos.

Neves and Campos addressed the assembly before Rousseff and both pledged that in case of winning the election they are determined to make 'more flexible' Mercosur rules, so that Brazil can negotiate trade accords with third parties independently from the mandatory consensus needed now from all members.

However Rousseff pointed out that it was not because of those procedures that the block made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela (although Caracas is not part of the deal because it only recently joined), hadn't been able to resume negotiations.

The idea is that the proposals are presented and exchanged simultaneously, but “the EU has not yet concluded its listing”, said the Brazilian leader.

“With France, Hungary and Ireland, they are having support problems” and besides there are political sectors which are blaming part of the current crisis situation in the EU precisely on its open markets policy.

“Mercosur after much effort has arrived to a proposal which many believed would not be achieved”, said Rousseff adding that the matter of the fact is “that now it is the EU that has to conclude its proposal and reach an internal agreement”.

The Brazilian leader revealed that it was outgoing European Commission president José Manuel Durao Barroso who informed of the situation during his recent (18 July) visit to Brazil and anticipated “it will still take two months before the EU agrees”.