Uruguay takes over the Mercosur presidency this month, with EU quotas a top priority
Key takeaways
- Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin said the country is already preparing to take on that role and that the technical teams are already working.
- The distribution of the quotas is one of the most sensitive pending issues.
- The negotiation faces differing criteria among the partners.
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Uruguay will assume the pro tempore presidency of Mercosur on June 30, during a summit of the bloc in Paraguay, with the distribution of the quotas from the agreement with the European Union (EU) among the main items on its agenda. Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin said the country is already preparing to take on that role and that the technical teams are already working.
The distribution of the quotas is one of the most sensitive pending issues. The commercial chapter of the agreement between Mercosur and the EU entered provisional application on May 1, after more than 25 years of negotiations, but the internal distribution of the quotas Brussels granted to the bloc's partners —especially for beef— was not settled in time. Before the end of September that issue has to be closed, Lubetkin said, adding that the talks are advancing in a better climate than at the start and that there is a clearer perception on the part of the four countries of the need to reach agreements.
The negotiation faces differing criteria among the partners. Uruguay and Argentina favor distributing the quotas according to an average of what each country exports to the EU; Paraguay proposes dividing them into four equal parts, and Brazil, according to each partner's share of world trade. The Uruguayan government has also held that the distribution must be set out in a binding legal instrument, approved by the bloc's organs, rather than in an informal pre-agreement among private operators.