Mercosur and the European Union (EU) began a meeting on Monday (11.3.2019) that will last until Friday and in which the two organizations will try to advance in the negotiation for a free trade agreement, reported sources from the Argentine Foreign Ministry.
The EU's chief negotiator for Mercosur, Italian Sandra Gallina, heads the European side of the negotiating table, while the South American bloc - made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay - is represented by the Secretary of International Economic Relations of the Argentine Foreign Ministry, Horacio Reyser.
The details of the content of the meeting and the points to be discussed during it are unknown, as it is being held behind closed doors to the press, and the Foreign Ministry has only confirmed that this round of technical meetings will last for five days.
Negotiations for this trade agreement between the two institutions have been resumed in the last two years after being stalled for almost two decades, but they have not yet reached a successful conclusion.
The latest resistance was expressed by some European countries, including France, which expressed reluctance to some of the ideas of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who had considered withdrawing Brazil from the Paris Agreement on climate change, although he has since backed off.
Bolsonaro himself later stated that it is necessary to "quickly conclude the most promising negotiations and start other negotiations," referring to the meetings with the EU of the group formed by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The European Commission said in January that it is committed to achieving an "ambitious, comprehensive and balanced" agreement and will "spare no effort", but the pact will only be concluded "when the conditions are met" for it.
In the previous round, held in December in Uruguay, "some useful additional clarifications were made", but more work is still needed at a technical level, "particularly on pending issues for the EU", according to the Commission.
Source: Reuters
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