Assis Moreira, from Geneva

The Mercosur and the European Union have scheduled a ministerial meeting for November 12, to be held in Brussels one week before the FTAA conference, in Miami. The Europeans intend to lead the two blocks to evaluate how they see the future of the negotiations of a regional agreement after the failure of the WTO meeting in Cancun.

"We are going to examine what philosophies we have in common and whether there is a line of thought to continue the negotiations," said the EU's Trade spokeswoman, Arancha Gonzalez, to Valor. Gonzales evaluates that, in this context, it is "premature" to try to emphasize the agricultural issue in the Brussels meeting.

In an internal document, the European Commissions General Trade Director, Peter Carl, says that "the future of the discussions is far from clear and that it is necessary to examine, under the light of the Cancun fiasco, what real interest the Mercosur countries are giving to these negotiations". Brussels did not hide its irritation, during and after Cancun, with Brazil's leadership in the G-20, complaining that the group transferred all of the liberalization responsibilities to the developed countries.

According to the Brazilian ambassador to the EU, José Alfredo Graça Lima, agriculture must be on the meeting's agenda, regardless of the Cancun failure. "Without advancements in agriculture, the process as a whole is compromised for obvious commercial and political reasons."

The EU alerted its trade partners to not give up on an aggressive legal contestation round regarding the agricultural subsidies after the end of the Peace Clause. To Franz Fischler, the EU's agricultural commissary, the partners must decide on what they'd prefer: a round of successful negotiations or pressure for the end of the subsidies.

Read more about this in the 10/17/03 issue of Valor Econômico