Mercosur and the European Union (EU) on Friday (September 810.09.2017, XNUMX) brought their positions closer together in order to reach a free trade agreement after almost twenty years of negotiations, both sides reported.
European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen and Mercosur foreign ministers met in Brasilia on Friday and expressed optimism about the possibility of closing the agreement this year.
The meeting was part of the 30th session of the Mercosur-European Union Bi-regional Negotiations Committee, which took place this week.
According to Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes, who explained at a press conference afterwards, this was expected to be one of the last negotiation meetings.
"We hope to conclude this agreement by the end of this year," he said. According to him, the proposal submitted to the European Union includes rules for the exchange of goods that create a favourable legal framework for trade between the countries.
For its part, Juniper I consider that The agreement with Mercosur is of the utmost importance not only for economic reasons, as it will boost trade between the countries involved, but also for its political impact.For Katainen, the deal is close to being finalized.
"The agreement will result in lower or zero tariffs for certain products and will allow us to operate around a set of rules that will govern relations between the European Union and Mercosur in order to facilitate the business environment through more sustainable trade between the two regions," said the Finn.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Jorge Faurie, said that "if we manage to sign this agreement by December, we will be able to generate greater confidence for investors and give a signal to companies to increase trade. We will also take an important step towards trade based on rules, discipline and values.
The foreign ministers of Mercosur received in Brasilia@jyrkikatainen, Vice-President of the European Commission. This is a time to take political courage to reach a decision. pic.twitter.com/w2uoSjFQUJ
— Jorge Faurie (@JorgeFaurie) November 10th 2017
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