Fisheries exports from Mercosur member countries which now face tariffs ranging from 8% to 15% in the European Union will see them gradually disappear during a seven-year period, according to the terms of the wide-ranging strategic trade and cooperation agreement signed this week between the two blocks.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Sunday that it could take up to three years for the free-trade deal agreed by the European Union and Mercosur to come into force, as it depends on approvals by lawmakers of all countries involved.
“Now I only have to recover the Malvinas Islands” said Argentine foreign minister Jorge Faurie, following the trade and association agreement reached on Friday in Brussels between Mercosur and the European Union.
The European Union and Mercosur reached on Friday a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement. The EU is the first major partner to strike a trade pact with Mercosur, a bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil Paraguay and Uruguay.
President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday Germany has “a lot to learn” from Brazil when it comes to the environment, hitting back at criticism over deforestation in the Amazon. Bolsonaro made the remarks in Japan on the eve of the G20 summit, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she would seek “straight talk” with the Brazilian leader over destruction of the rainforest.
A protest by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) is taking place at the European Commission offices in Dublin over the “double standards of the commission” in their reckless pursuit of a sell-out trade deal” with the Mercosur trade bloc.
French President Emmanuel Macron and three other national leaders warned the European Commission that a trade deal with trade bloc Mercosur could ultimately destabilize production and the agricultural sector.
Argentina has opened an inquiry into what caused a massive blackout that left nearly 50 million people without power, Energy Minister Gustavo Lopetegui said on Monday.
The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Intergovernmental Coordinating Committee of the countries of the Plata Basin (CIC) signed an agreement on Monday for the project Preparing the ground for the Implementation of the Strategic Action Program for the La Plata Basin, during a ceremony at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC.
A massive blackout left tens of millions of people without electricity in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and parts of Chile and southern Brazil on Sunday. The Argentine president called it an “unprecedented” failure in the countries' interconnected power grid.