ISDS Case Map
Mercosur
The European Union and Mercosur will resume talks on a free trade agreement during a coming summit in Brazil and later at a meeting in Santiago de Chile, both in January,
Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur has had interpretations centered on the economic and commercial aspects, but the most important it is a geopolitical and geoenergy matter.
When the Paraguayan Senate approved the “political judgment” against Fernando Lugo on June 22, it unleashed the biggest political crisis in the Mercosur in the last 20 years. The dust still hasn’t settled, but it’s clear that nothing will be the same since the shake-up.
There is little likelihood that South America's Mercosur trade bloc will take up China's proposal to establish a free trade agreement, at least in the short term. Experts and industrialists fear an invasion of cheap Chinese goods, and unequal competition.
Pakistan's Ministry of Commerce is negotiating trading arrangements with Mercosur countries like Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and Andean Community (CAN) a trade bloc comprising the South American countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to increase it’s trade market access.
Joining the South American trade bloc Mercosur will be a boon for Venezuela and should help the country's businesses boost international sales, President Hugo Chavez said Monday as he traveled to Brazil for a meeting where Venezuela will formally become a member.
Just as Friday’s convention photo showed a lame Mercosur — with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Dilma Rousseff and José Mujica, but without the Presidents of Paraguay (suspended) and Venezuela (convalescent) — Brazilian and Argentine political lobbyists, along with some Bolivarian middlemen are frantically working for an expanded Mercosur photo, in which four new members would be joining the club. After Venezuela’s hurried entrance into the group last week, the door is now wide open for more partners.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the Asian giant is interested in a possible free-trade deal with the Mercosur regional trade bloc.
Wen, who is due to end his Latin American tour in Chile on Tuesday after also visiting Brazil and Uruguay, asked leaders of South American trade bloc Mercosur to look into the possibility of a free-trade deal with China.
Spain’s Foreign Affairs minister Jose Garcia Margallo said that Madrid supports negotiations for a free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union on a “region to region” basis, back stepping from his proposal last April to exclude Argentina following the seizure of YPF from Repsol.
