
Argentina's moves to restrict imports and prop up its shrinking trade surplus as well as European farmers resistance to ‘cheap’ meat imports could hurt talks for a trade deal between Mercosur and the European Union, an EU official said on Wednesday.

An academic seminar “20 years of Mercosur” will be the main celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the South American trade block, unable to convene political figures from the four full member countries to commemorate the 26 March 1991 founding charter or Asuncion Treaty.

Brazil reaffirmed the significance of Mercosur for President Dilma Rousseff administration’s foreign policy and underlined the strategic relation with Argentina, Brazil’s main associate in the trade block.

President Dilma Rousseff will not be visiting Paraguay until the Brazilian Congress approves the Itaipú reversal notes which establish a greater compensation for surplus power purchased from Paraguay by Latin America’s energy hungry largest economy.

Ireland, supported by France keeps putting pressure to derail the ongoing trade talks between the European Union commission and Mercosur, reports the Dublin press.

“Not even dressed as Father Christmas can president Hugo Chavez make Venezuela become a member of Mercosur”, according to a 2009 Wikileaks cable quoting Paraguay’s Foreign Affairs minister Hector Lacognata during an informal talk with US ambassador in Asuncion Liliana Ayalde.

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has pressed Ireland’s anxieties about ongoing trade talks with Mercosur with agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos who was most receptive to Ireland’s position, reports the Dublin media.

United States farmers have called on the US government to approve the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama because Mercosur countries are taking a bigger share of US agriculture exports to those countries.

The fourth round of European Union/Mercosur negotiations for a trade agreement concluded in Brussels Friday with no major advances which could be a setback for the original plan to have a deal sealed by the end of the year.

The Argentine congress ratified this week the free trade agreement between Mercosur and Israel. The accord subscribed in 2007 and already passed by the Senate, was approved in the Lower House by 144 votes, 8 nays and 10 abstentions.