
Mercosur tourism ministers agreed to facilitate border crossings for citizens from country members and to draft a homogeneous system for keeping the industry’s statistics, during their XI meeting held in Asuncion, Paraguay.

The apparent impasse in the European Union/Mercosur trade talks was addressed by the Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo at a meeting on Tuesday with Members of the European Parliament and the EU delegation to Mercosur negotiations.

French president Nicholas Sarkozy stressed over the weekend he would not accept an European Union-Mercosur trade agreement that could mean a loss of income for European farmers.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff cancelled on medical advice Sunday’s trip to Asunción where she was scheduled to participate in the bicentennial celebrations of Paraguay’s independence.

A week before the next round of negotiations for an ambitious association and trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, a paper from the EU Joint Research Study centre, JRS, quantifies the alleged losses of such a deal for European farmers.

Paraguay is experiencing a boom in corn with an area planted of over a million hectares compared to 600.000 hectares a year ago, according to the country’s Soybean Farmers’ Association president agronomist Francisco Regis Mereles.

Venezuela in Mercosur will act as a balancing element and Unasur has more than proven its merits, said Paraguay’s new Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Lara Castro who insisted the country must work urgently to overcome asymmetries in the region and passive integration is not enough.

Paraguay’s Minister of Public Health Esperanza Martinez acknowledged on Tuesday that the current mosquito transmitted dengue epidemic is far more severe than that of 2007, considered the worst in recent times, and claimed she has had limited support from city councils

European Union Agriculture ministers will be meeting this week in Luxembourg to discuss the current trade negotiations with Mercosur, according to European Commission sources.

Paraguay’s government oil company Petropar is trying to find a foreign associate for oil exploration in the country’s vast Chaco region. Apparently companies from Russia and Bahrain have shown certain interest but Paraguayans admit the difficulties.