The European Union is "very close to closing" the long-delayed free-trade agreement with Mercosur trade bloc, despite French objections to the deal, says Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The EU and the South American bloc – composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — have been in talks to clinch an accord for more than two decades. An agreement was announced in 2019 but never implemented following fresh EU environmental demands.
An agreement would create a massive free-trade zone that would cover more than 700 million people, boosting trade between the massive regions.
"We are very close to closing this agreement," declared socialist leader Sánchez, a staunch defender of the controversial trade deal, during an economic forum in the Portuguese town of Faro on Wednesday.
"We have two key dates: (...) the G20 summit in November, in Rio de Janeiro, and also the Mercosur summit, in December of this year. Therefore, we are going to work to materialise" the final agreement, he stressed.
Negotiations between the EU and the Mercosur countries (the aforementioned and new member Bolivia), stalled for years, have resumed in recent months under the leadership of some European countries, such as Germany.
But the developments have raised concerns among farmers, particularly in France, where agricultural unions have called for mobilisation from mid-November, less than a year after massive protests across the sector.
The EU-Mercosur deal is "not acceptable" as it stands, French President Emmanuel Macron said in Brussels last week.
Macron believes that the agreement could contravene the Paris climate accords and harm European interests, a view not shared by other countries in the region, which hope to see an increase in their exports to South America.
– TIMES/AFP
