Mercosur

With the signing of the Treaty of Asuncion in 1991, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay created Mercosur. The objective was to create a common market/customs union between the four countries. Mercosur was set up with the aim of:

• accelerating the processes of economic development with social justice;

• promoting its members' international position by consolidating their economic integration;

• promoting scientific and technological development and economic modernisation;

• essentially improving its peoples' living standards and conditions.

For more information, see the Mercosur website

The Treaty of Ouro Preto, signed in 1994, marked the start of efforts to realise a common market and to establish an institutional framework. The institutional structure was inspired by the EU model, but unlike the EU, Mercosur is based on a 100 percent intergovernmental structure, i.e. there are no supranational central institutions.

In 1996 the Mercosur countries signed an association agreement with Chile and Bolivia, establishing free trade areas with these countries.

The EU-Mercosur Relationship

The EU-Mercosur relationship is based on the Interregional Framework Co-operation Agreement, which was signed in 1995 and fully entered into force on 1 July 1999. The objective of the agreement is to prepare for negotiations on an association agreement between the EU and Mercosur. In June 1998 these negotiations were formally launched. The association agreement is aimed to include the following elements:

• a liberalisation of all trade in goods and services, conform to WTO rules;

• an enhanced form of co-operation;

• a strengthened political dialogue.

The negotiations will mainly take place through the Bi-regional Negotiations Committee (BNC). Next to this BNC there is a Subcommittee on Co-operation (SCC), some subgroups on specific co-operation areas and three technical groups that deal with trade issues.

For further information go to the the formal launching of the negotiations on the Europa External Relation website.

EU-Mercosur Co-operation Council Meetings

First Round

In November 1999 a meeting of the EU-Mercosur Co-operation Council was held, in which a document on the structure/methodology/calendar was presented.   See Press Release from the meeting.

So far, there have been three rounds of negotiations in the BNC. The first round of negotiations was held in April 2000 and discussed the general principles, political dialogue, co-operation and trade matters. With respect to trade, it became clear that the aim of the future association agreement would not only include liberalisation, but also agreements on competition policies, a dispute settlement mechanism, government procurement, intellectual property rights, investment and trade defence instruments.

See the Conclusions of the first meeting.

Second Round

The second round of trade negotiations was held in June 2000. The trade discussion mainly discussed three issues:

• the exchange of information;

• the identification of non-tariff obstacles;

• The definition of specific objectives for each area of the negotiations.

While political dialogue negotiations took place at the highest level during this second round, co-operation negotiations were conducted at the level of subgroups. 

See the Conclusions of the second meeting.

Third Round

The third round of negotiations was held in November 2000. During this round, both the EU and Mercosur presented draft texts on the legal framework of the future political dialogue and the institutional structure of the future association agreement. The discussions lead to a joint draft text on these issues. With respect to trade issues, there was a substantial exchange of information and the process of preparing draft negotiation texts in several trade areas that will be discussed in following negotiations was started. In addition, some texts on economic co-operation were approved during this round.

See the Conclusions of the third meeting.

The next round of negotiations will be held in March 2001.

Further details

For more information EU-Mercosur co-operation, EU-Mercosur Political Dialogue and EU-Mercosur Trade relations go to the Mercosur website and the EU-Mercosur section of the EU External Relations website on Europa. 

See the European Commission staff working paper on the establishment of an association agreement.

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