MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Macri pushes in Berlin for EU-Mercosur accord, but Merkel sides with France in the agriculture issue
President Mauricio Macri met on Tuesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin with both leaders holding a press conference to address the current state of talks regarding a trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesFrance and Germany have and will continue to be protectionist as regards the Common Agricultural Policy as it affects them totally The French farmers would block every major road and create gridlock and damn the consequences as they have done before. So forget a deal with the EU for many years to come.
Jul 06th, 2016 - 05:43 am - Link - Report abuse 0The UK will probably be willing to sign a trade deal a lot quicker then the EU.
Jul 06th, 2016 - 09:18 am - Link - Report abuse 0A free trade agreement with the United Kingdom can not be dropped. Mercosur and the United Kingdom have complementary economies.
Jul 06th, 2016 - 11:27 am - Link - Report abuse 0We need your industry to also give our own industrial competitiveness.
Technology services is also very necessary here.
Lacking any intention to fuel Argentina's domestic sector, Macri is trying hard for a return to an agro-export model that belongs in the past--but could make millions for wealthy estancieros thanks to the dumping of export taxes.
Jul 06th, 2016 - 02:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0”For now, the hard numbers of the economy (employment, inflation, poverty, debt, fiscal deficit, growth) did nothing but worsen since CFK left the Pink House last December,” writes Buenos Aires Herald editor-in-chief Sebastián Lacunza.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/217330/cfk%E2%80%99s-(unlikely)-opportunity
Agriculture, the French, good luck with that Mauricio, best ask you mate in Rome if he has got any miracles going spare or cheap.
Jul 06th, 2016 - 04:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The British tried for 40+ years, got know where, Butter mountains, wine lakes, crops ploughed back in, 50%+ of EU spending to this day.
@3 Brasileiro
Ok, who are you and what have you done with the real Brasileiro?????
@ 4 Enrique Massot
Probably going to keep getting worse for some time yet.
#3 Nostrils, I think you have taken the wrong tablets. Please consult your nurse.
Jul 06th, 2016 - 07:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@4 Reekie: “ ...Lacking any intention to fuel Argentina's domestic sector,...”
Jul 07th, 2016 - 02:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0Argentina's “domestic sector” is inefficient, unproductive, marginally skilled, technologically backward, beset by corruption and criminality, more inclined to labour strikes than producing widgets, monstrously over-compensated for what little they do produce, and bloody ages behind Europe. Peronismo works long and hard to keep things that way.
If Macri was hoping for some sort of big rise in food prices to keep his boat afloat through exports, that isn't likely. Forecasts for the next several years suggest rather flat price trends. As Argentine inflation continues, any hope for competitive advantage diminishes. Had Argentina been clever, and in another language I would have used the subjunctive to reflect the lack of probability there, it might have sidled up to the UK as a trading partner. Instead, Malacara takes every opportunity to remind the UK that Argentina is its enduring enemy.
What does Argentina produce that the EU really needs? Precious little. And the EU already has one Greece; they certainly don't need another.
The unmighty EU should tell Argentina to soddy offy and leave the islanders alone or they will also come to her aid,
Jul 07th, 2016 - 12:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0BUT THEY WONT,
they will just stab us in the back and support Argentina,
they are treating us disgustingly and disgracefully,
if this is the way they treat us,
then Argentina is in for a treat..
#7 Martillazo
Jul 07th, 2016 - 02:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Although I disagree with part of your post above, I am pleased it contains analysis as opposed to aggression--I do appreciate it.
I do agree with second and third paragraph.
In regards to the first, I agree Argentina's domestic sector needs improvement. The Kirchnerist governments, with flaws, attempted to give buying power of the poor and the middle classes to fuel the economy, which is viewed as a mortal sin by the wealthy estancieros, as much now as it was in the 1950s. They look at Kirchnerist laws protecting rural workers and domestic employees as a direct attack on their unborn superiority.
Their friend Macri attempts to return to an agro-export-based economy benefiting the ultra wealthy oligarchy only, even more with a lower value for the peso and without export taxes as done by Macri. However, as several posters stated above, such goal in today's context is not only backward but highly unrealistic.
#8
Jul 07th, 2016 - 04:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Aren't we still in the EU with an effective veto ?
@9 “...Kirchnerist governments, with flaws, attempted to give buying power of the poor and the middle classes to fuel the economy...”
Jul 07th, 2016 - 04:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Kirchnerist governments played the usual populista card by attempting to buy votes through artificial “buying power” for the nonproductive sectors of the economy. That artificial buying power was funded by heavy taxes on agricultural exporters, which of course Reekie continues to demonise .
Los KK were not smart enough to recognise that this “ give buying power of the poor and the middle classes to fuel the economy” was one of the factors that bankrupted Chile under the Allende regime in the early 1970s.
@9 “...and without export taxes as done by Macri...”
Reekie, you have conveniently forgotten that soy taxes are what pays the bills in this country, and the retenciones/export-taxes on soy under the Macri government are 30 percent. The producers of other agricultural products pay heavy taxes on ganancias. Perhaps you have not noticed.
So we return to the earlier observation: “Industria Argentina” can't compete with the productivity and efficiencies of the civilised nations, and rapidly increasing agricultural production costs for Argentine GMO crops, against higher productivity and output efficiencies in competing nations. This all points to diminished revenues and a poor economic outlook for AR for many years to come. Argentina's best hope for paying the bills is to reduce its loaded labour rates, which are excessive, and observe the Mexico model: admit that you have no native technology or advantage, and be content assembling the widgets that are designed and manufactured by the developed nations, just like other third-world backwaters. Argentina tried and failed miserably to produce a native automobile (and even then had to import significant content) so now it assembles the parts from the likes of Volkswagen and Toyota, many of them actually manufactured in the US, Brazil, Europe, and Asia.
10 Clyde15
Jul 07th, 2016 - 06:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0so they say,
but with camarons history of being out vetoed, it aint worth much.
#12
Jul 07th, 2016 - 08:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I thought that here had to be unanimous agreement of all members for trade deals to be ratified.
@13 Clyde15
Jul 08th, 2016 - 03:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0We have a veto until article 50 is activated, after which we play no further part in EU decision making.
#13
Jul 08th, 2016 - 06:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I was being polite here, I knew about the UK's veto when I posted.
15 Clyde15
Jul 08th, 2016 - 07:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0thanks
but I was also under the impression that the EU was going to remove all vetoes and replace this with collective majority voting as a way of getting around the national veto that is, in some cases slowing the EU integration down.
As for the trade deals, I was under the impression that the EU represented all nations in the Eu, and the EU would decide,
but perhaps I have misunderstood the rules and you are correct, that without All 28 members agreeing, a deal cannot be struck,
but either way, we will soon be out,
#11 Martillazo
Jul 09th, 2016 - 06:05 am - Link - Report abuse 0Sure! Let's lower the wages--when workers protest send the police and give them what they deserve. In fact, let's starve them and reduce domestic production, so scores of them show up to fill a few positions at very low wages.
“Artificial” buying power?
Oh yes. Doubling the size of the middle class in Argentina was “artificial.” Developing thousands of small and medium-size enterprises was also “artificial.”
Or so says Macri, who has decreed the end of the party and time to “pay the bills.”
What a hypocrite.
The neo-con ideal:
“Argentina's best hope for paying the bills is to reduce its loaded labour rates, which are excessive...”
Only rational response to the above statement: Ha!
“'Industria Argentina' can't compete with the productivity and efficiencies of the civilised (sic) nations...”
You know what Marti? Get lost. You and your stern lectures about your idea of Argentines' capabilities: Get lost.
Argentines may have many defects, but they are not submissive and they always look ahead. We've been oppressed, murdered, imprisoned, tortured, but dictators have never been able to stay for too long in our country.
And judging for this week's stories coming from the U.S.A. and the U.K., Argentina still is a pretty decent country--even under Macri's presidency.
“Argentina's best hope for paying the bills is to reduce its loaded labour rates, which are excessive...”
Jul 09th, 2016 - 06:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Argentina's loaded labour rates (total worker compensation) for manufacturing are nearly double those of Brazil, yet Brazil is considerably more efficient at manufacturing production, largely due to the influences of the past 12 years of Kirchner Peronism.
This is only one of the many reasons why argentine industry is so noncompetitive and continues to lose ground, and why the country has such an enormously high poverty rate, and well as comparatively low per-capita national product when compared to the neighbours.
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