The EU and four South American nations -- Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay -- said on Thursday they will aim to sign an "ambitious" free-trade accord in October.
The announcement came as the US drive for a Free Trade Area of the Americas as well as free-trade talks in the WTO are at a stalemate.
EU officials and trade ministers from the four Mercosur nations emerged from four hours of talks saying a trade deal was possible, one week after both sides made important concessions that injected new vigor in the talks.
"We all had the sense it is possible, with hard work, to finish by the target date of October 2004, with a good and balanced agreement," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said.
Given the precarious state of trade negotiations elsewhere, he spoke of a "window of opportunity" that may disappear.
Speaking at the same news conference, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said both sides weighed their respective trade concessions and saw "that progress is possible."
Delegates said they would seek an "ambitious agreement," covering farm trade, industrial tariffs and services.
It would be the first for the EU with a bloc of nations.
The announcement that negotiations will move ahead came a day before 25 EU leaders open talks with their counterparts from 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations.
The summit will be an occasion for the EU to signal it wants to push for free-trade deals in the years ahead with a dozen Central American and Andean nations.
"We are not in competition with the United States," EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told reporters.
But he noted the EU seeks deals that cover agriculture -- a politically sensitive area in which Europe has always been protectionist and Latin nations competitive. The US, was opting for "lighter" accords without farm trade, which Washington wants covered in the WTO talks that collapsed last year.
The EU-Mercosur negotiations began a few years ago. They were initially meant to be concluded after next January -- the deadline for the WTO talks.
Lamy said while the EU and Mercosur remained committed to the much wider WTO process, he will ask EU governments to implement the deal with Mercosur by the end of this year if the WTO negotiations remain at an impasse.
EU officials said regardless of an acceleration of an EU-Mercosur deal, liberalizing farm trade remained an essential part of the WTO talks.
The EU has offered Mercosur total trade liberalization for eggs, corn, flour and other products and deep tariff cuts for juices and fruits. Sensitive products, such as meat, would remain subject to quotas and possibly duties, officials said.
In turn, the EU wants Mercosur to open public works projects to European bidders and also open up their banking, insurance and other service industries as well as their car, chemical and pharmaceutical sectors.
The Europeans also want the South Americans to protect hundreds of other products that enjoy protection in Europe, based on regional origin, against imitators.
Patten said free trade with Central American nations can only happen if those countries step up trade with one another. The same was true for the Andean Pact nations, he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat