Beginning June, Mercosur full members will share macro-economic indicators elaborated with the same criteria and which will be released simultaneously, according to reports in the Montevideo press. The initiative was partly financed by the European Union that also played an advisory role.
An overwhelming majority of EU citizens want the fish they buy to come from sources that are sustainable and not over-fished, according to an independent poll commissioned by World Wildlife Fund, WWF, and carried out in 14 EU countries.
The mix of high external indebtedness, the fragility of the financial sector and the probability of further declines in asset prices increase the probability of a funding squeeze at some point means that “Spain will be the next country to seek financial assistance from the EU and the International Monetary Fund”, argues one of the Financial Times respected columnists.
“Argentina is not a great trade partner for the European Union in absolute terms, but the EU is a crucial partner for Argentina”, pointed out the head of the EU delegation in Buenos Aires Alfonso Diez Torres.
Portugal's caretaker government said on Wednesday it had decided to seek financing from the European Union in an abrupt turnaround after resisting a bailout for months despite sharply deteriorating financial conditions.
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.
European Union agriculture ministers at the weekend rejected capping subsidies to Europe's biggest farms but compromised on a fairer share-out of funds between farmers in Eastern and Western Europe.
Italy is urging other European countries to take a greater share of the immigrants pouring across from North Africa. The tiny island of Lampedusa is just south of Sicily and only 150 kilometers from the Tunisian coast and has borne the brunt of the flood of refugees.
A trade agreement with Mercosur should not have to destroy the European beef industry, said on Tuesday a spokesperson for the European Community who added that such fears are ‘exaggerated’.
The European Parliament passed a highly critical report on trade negotiations between the EU and the Mercosur bloc for considering that they may imply “farming concessions damaging to European producers.”