Merkel hopes for 'fair' EU-Mercosur trade deal

TheLocal.de ^ | 5 February 2017 10:38 CET+01:00 | AFP

[Olog-hai]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that she would work toward securing a “fair” free-trade deal between the EU and Mercosur, the South American economic bloc. Her comments, posted in her weekly video message, came ahead of a visit by Uruguay’s President Tabaré Vázquez to Berlin on Wednesday.

“We are fundamentally in favor of international trade agreements, which is why we are very happy with the effort in the Mercosur countries” to reach a deal with the European Union, Merkel said. “It’s a matter of reaching a fair deal, where Europe’s interests are taken into account just as are those of Latin America.”

But she acknowledged that discussions over EU access for Mercosur’s agricultural products would be “a difficult subject”, given the large EU subsidies for its farmers. …

[2banana]

All South America HAS is agricultural...

[Ben Ficklin]

Back in the old days it was supposed to be Free Trade Agreement of the Americas(FTAA) between US and South America, which was supposed to go along with NAFTA and CAFTA.

George Bush was able to complete CAFTA but FTAA fell thru

[ameribbean expat]

And commodities, hard and soft. Put South American commodities together with Northern European engineering, it makes sense.