A long-awaited major trade deal between the EU and Mercosur may this week take a key step towards realization with ministerial teams from both sides meeting in Brussels on Monday. They are expected to give negotiators a new, decisive political impulse to reach agreement in a matter of weeks, according to Irish sources.
Argentine president Mauricio Macri ended on Friday his European tour in Paris, where he addressed the business community and potential investors, and later held a private meeting with president Emmanuel Macron. According to Argentine sources there is strong French investors' interest, but apparently Macron held his ground when regarding the EU/Mercosur overall trade agreement.
Argentina has left behind its populist experiment, and there is no other country with greater potential, Argentine president Mauricio Macri told the World Economic Forum in Davos during a speech to the forum of world political and business leaders.
Negotiations for a trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur will extend into next year, officials from both sides said on Wednesday, after the Europeans asked for more time to analyze proposed changes.
The talks between the European Union and Mercosur will likely extend into next year after European negotiators said they needed more time to respond to improved offers, a source from Mercosur negotiators said on Tuesday.
Free-trade talks between the European Union and Mercosur still face hurdles over beef and ethanol, and an expected deal announcement this week might not happen, officials involved in negotiations admitted on Monday. Mercosur diplomats on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires said EU officials had not presented improved offers on EU tariff-free imports for beef and ethanol as promised.
Irish MEP and vice-president of the European Parliament Mairead McGuinness is representing the European Parliament at the ministerial assembly on the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Argentina, which began on Sunday, and has warned that rushing towards a Mercosur/European Union deal would jeopardize the EU beef industry.
The European Union’s farm chief pressed Mercosur countries to offer market access for EU wines, spirits, olive oil and dairy goods to help seal a free-trade agreement that has been in the works for two decades.
Mercosur is confident a framework agreement with the European Union will be announced next week despite resistance from farmers in Europe to permit tariff-free beef imports, a Mercosur official said. “There is more than a 70% chance of reaching a deal,” said the official close to the negotiations that have dragged on for almost two decades.
Brussels will seek to drive forward negotiations on a far-reaching trade deal with Mercosur this week despite warnings from France and other EU members that they are reaching the limit of the concessions they can tolerate on beef and other sensitive agricultural products, according to a report from the Financial Times.