Ball in EU court to reach agreement with Mercosur, Paraguayan official warns

In the complex and protracted negotiations on the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, “the ball is in the court” of the 27 member states, Paraguay’s Industry and Trade Minister Javier Giménez told Euractiv’s partner EFE in an interview, pointing to Europe’s strict environmental rules as the main obstacle to a swift agreement.

Giménez referred to the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products – which has caused unease among local producers and which Paraguay, as part of a group of 60 countries, denounced before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – saying in the interview, that his country feels “fed up” after 25 years of negotiations that have yielded few results to date.

In the minister’s opinion, signing the agreement between the Mercosur bloc – made up of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia –  and the EU “is unfortunately a long way off, mainly due to what is happening in Europe”.

“The ball is more in their (EU) court than in ours (Mercosur members’)”, Giménez said, pointing to farmers’ protests against the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in Europe, low product prices and imports from third countries that do not comply with the EU’s environmental rules.

Giménez added that Paraguay and all Mercosur countries feel “tired” after a quarter of a century of negotiations since the two blocs expressed in June 1999 their willingness to negotiate a free trade agreement on which they reached an agreement in principle in June 2019.

The minister stressed that “there is an intention (to reach an agreement),” although “practice and experience” demonstrate that “it is difficult to reach this agreement.”

One of the most critical points – and one that has made negotiations extremely difficult – is that the EU is imposing very demanding environmental measures, “based on the premise that we (the Mercosur partners) are the world’s biggest pollution problem”, the Paraguayan official added.

“We are already starting from a false premise”, Giménez added while defending that Paraguay represents only 0.09% of the planet’s CO2 emissions and reminding us that 99% of the energy produced by the South American country is renewable and clean.

(Laura Barros | EFE-Paraguay)

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