Brazil, Latin America‘s biggest economy, is planning to try to negotiate a separate trade deal with the European Union, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said in remarks published Monday.
Mercosur has become characterized for “bad leadership and worse presidents” of the countries that make up the block, since there is no incentive for the regional organization and it has become “an ideological battle political field”, said Cesario Ramalho da Silva, president of the Brazilian Rural Society.
Brazil wants to change the way Mercosur negotiates trade agreements with the European Union, EU, so as to definitively advance with the ongoing discussions that were started in 1995, but still have to see concrete results, according to Brazilian official trade and diplomatic sources.
Uruguay needs a quick resumption of Mercosur/European Union trade and cooperation talks because at the end of the year expire a number of tariff benefits for Uruguayan exports, revealed Foreign minister Luis Almagro.
Mercosur partners’ sanctions on Paraguay rather benefited than hindered the country, said President Federico Franco during a press conference in which he underlined the country had become more reliable and this was supported by a three fold increase in foreign investments.
President elect Horacio Cartes revealed in Spain that Paraguay is claiming the pro-tempore chair of Mercosur, argued that Venezuela is an ‘illegitimate’ member of the trade group and said Paraguay is en route to becoming full member of the Pacific Alliance.
One of Mercosur ‘main obstacles’ is political and has its origin in Argentina, a country that is ‘extremely protectionist’, said the president of Brazil’s National Agriculture Confederation, CAN, Senator Katia Abreu currently in Brussels promoting the idea of a bilateral Brazil/EU free trade agreement.
President Dilma Rousseff ratified Latinamerica and Mercosur as Brazil’s foreign policy priorities, but at the same time emphasizing the ‘excellent relations’ with the United States and the European Union.
Paraguay president-elect Horacio Cartes ratified he will not be attending the coming Mercosur summit scheduled to take place July 12 in Montevideo, confirmed one of his foreign policy advisors since the Paraguayan position remains that “Venezuela is not a full member of Mercosur because the Paraguayan congress by overwhelming majority rejected such option in August 2012”.
“British sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands as such is not accepted by the European Parliament”, according to a visiting delegation of EU lawmakers who met with their Argentine peers in Buenos Aires.