{"id":170,"date":"2023-06-09T04:52:15","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T02:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/esf\/?page_id=170"},"modified":"2025-12-11T16:35:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T14:35:48","slug":"eu-mercosur","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/bilateral-negotiations\/eu-ongoing-bilateral-negotiations\/eu-mercosur\/","title":{"rendered":"EU-Mercosur"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 11th December 2025, few days before the crucial vote in the EU Council, the European Services Forum has co-signed a Joint Statement in support of the EU-Mercosur agreement with three other horizontal business organisations, namely BusinessEurope, the European Round Table for Industry, and Eurochambres. You can find it here<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESF joined forces with 25 EU Association to encourage the ratification of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement as a milestone for fair and sustainable global trade. See October 2025 Joint Declaration here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 3 September 2025, European Services Forum called for swift ratification and implementation
of the EU-Mercosur interim Trade Agreement (see Press-release here<\/a>). And few days later was published a Joint Statement by a European business coalition<\/a>, gathering 25 business organizations including ESF, calling for the signature of the agreement <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESF Director has been invited to a close-door meeting of the European Parliament INTA Monitoring Group on MERCOSUR on 18th<\/sup> March for a specific session on trade in services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting gathered not only the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs but also the trade coordinators of the political groups. In addition of the 10 MEPs, 5 officials of the Commission, 55 MEPs assistants and staff of the INTA committee. ESF was the only outside organisation invited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find attached the two-pages document<\/a> used for the event and the statistics<\/a> that were also circulated to the members of the Monitoring Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 December 2024 – Brussels – The European Services Forum (ESF), representing the interests of the European service sectors in international trade and investment negotiations, warmly welcomes the announcement of the Conclusion of the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement today in Montevideo in the margins of Mercosur Summit. See Press-release here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business coalition call for Mercosur: On 15th November 2024, ESF joined 77 other business associations across the Atlantic call on policymakers to swiftly conclude this free trade agreement. Did you know EU exported \u20ac27 Bio of services in 2022 to Mercosur & could do much more? see here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The EU must swiftly implement the FTA with Mercosur to safeguard competitiveness and promote economic security. On 15 January 2024, together with other 22 European associations the European Services Forum stressed the importance of the FTA in a letter to Ms Roberta Metsola,<\/strong> President of the European Parliament, Mr Charles Michel, <\/strong>President of the European Council,and Ms Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong> President of the European Commission and called on the EU and Mercosur leaders to rapidly conclude the trade negotiations on the remaining open points. Please find the statement here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESF Letter on \u201cEuropean Services Industry call for the swift conclusion and ratification of the EU-MERCOSUR Trade Agreement<\/a>\u201d \u2013 5 July 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESF signed joint letter<\/a> with 18 European businesses associations to the three Presidents of the European Institutions calling on the EU to take all the necessary initiatives to ensure the swift ratification of the EU-Mercosur agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Oct. 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On EU- Mercosur, the negotiators have refused to engage in market access on services. In terms of agriculture, the EU did not previously have a position, but the EU position now is read as being so outrageous that Mercosur do not wish to engage. These discussions have focused primarily on text discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 March 2017: European Services Industry call for an ambitious EU-MERCOSUR Trade Agreement<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Most of the political and media attention on these Mercosur have and will undoubtedly focus on agriculture. We understand that agricultural trade with the Mercosur countries is a potent issue, but it is important too that services interests also be highlighted in public discussion and more importantly through the whole agreement.
It is somewhere astonishing that the figures of trade in services do not appear on the DG Trade website on Mercosur\u2019s page, while the total of trade in services volume between the EU and Mercosur countries amount to more than 32.7 \u20ac billion in 2015. The total exports of services to Mercosur amounted to 21.3 \u20ac billion in 2015, which represents 31.5% of the total volume of exports of the EU to Mercosur (goods and services). According to Eurostat, Brazil is the 9th trading partner of the EU in international trade in services, with \u20ac15.6 billion exports, and a net surplus of \u20ac6.9 Billion for the EU in 2015. EU exports of services to Argentina has increased over the last five years, from \u20ac3.4 billion in 2010, to \u20ac4.7 billion in 2014, i.e. an increase of +40%. The surplus in trade in services (+9.75 \u20ac billion) of the EU with Mercosur is double than the surplus in trade in goods (+4.3 \u20ac billion) in 2015. These figures show the strategic importance of trade in services with the region, and hence must be reflected in the EU policy when negotiating with Mercosur.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European Services Industry Priorities on EU-MERCOSUR RTA – 8 April 2011<\/a>, when negotiations resumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The EU is currently negotiating a FTA with the four founding members of Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay). Current trade is governed by the Framework Cooperation Agreement<\/a>. The EU exported 20 billion euro in commercial services to Mercosur in 2014, highlighting the importance of its market. Current negotiations are covering issues related to services, such as technical barriers to trade, government procurement, and intellectual property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU is preparing to table a new tariff offer to the South American trading bloc ahead of a new round of negotiations starting on Monday (2 October 2017). Eleven-member states are attempting to put a brake on an offer to extend tariff rate quotes on beef, poultry, sugar, and ethanol. In a joint letter circulated on Wednesday (27 September 2017), Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Romania said \u201cincluding quotas for most sensitive agricultural products (beef, ethanol, sugar, poultry, etc.) in the EU\u2019s offer now would be untimely\u201d. The Eleven call on the EU to \u201celaborate a method to define a maximum level of concessions (volume, composition, tariff administration, and staging)\u201d. The Eleven are putting this in the wider context of new free trade agreements coming up in the EU pipeline which include a sensitive negotiation in agriculture: \u201cThe purpose would be to take into account all concessions already granted and those considered in ongoing and future negotiations (Australia, New Zealand, Mexico)\u201d, the document reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: The European Commission<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please consult the following links for more details<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013DG Trade Mercosur<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Exporting from the EU<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2025 On 11th December 2025, few days before the crucial vote in the EU Council, the European Services Forum has co-signed a Joint Statement in support of the EU-Mercosur agreement with three other horizontal business organisations, namely BusinessEurope, the European Round Table for Industry, and Eurochambres. You can find it here. \u00a0 ESF joined forces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":149,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-170","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1829,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/170\/revisions\/1829"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esf.be\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}