The Board of Directors of the MERCOSUR Parliament met virtually with the Delegation of the European Parliament for Foreign Relations with MERCOSUR (DMER) to discuss issues on the bilateral parliamentary agenda, including the current state of negotiations between the European Union ( EU) and MERCOSUR.
The MEP Jordi Cañas, President of the Delegation, thanked the resumption of this meeting space between the European Parliament and MERCOSUR, as well as the importance of “strengthening the links between the parliamentary bodies with a positive agenda and advancing in the instrument of the Association Agreement between the European Union and MERCOSUR”. He also added that this meeting is the first of several meetings, to hold a meeting point to discuss issues that affect the two regions.
The President of the MERCOSUR Parliament, Paraguayan Parliamentarian Tomás Bittar, spoke about the sociopolitical situation in Venezuela, which “has worsened significantly, after elections where there was no possibility of alternation.” Similarly, he spoke about the current status of the EU-MERCOSUR Free Trade Agreement, which “has not yet become a reality, and there is still a long way to go before its approval.”
For his part, Parliamentarian Oscar Laborde, Vice President of the Argentine Delegation on the situation in Venezuela, commented that “PARLASUR, through the Democracy Observatory (ODPM) was in the electoral process, as was the European Parliament, we have a different report, where it marks the insufficiencies but indicates progress”, indicated Laborde.
The Vice President for Uruguay, Parliamentarian Gustavo Penadés, indicated that it is very important to discuss the need to advance in the MERCOSUR-European Union Agreement: “as leaders that we are, pragmatics must be what motivates us and forces us to make resolutions that they can speed up what takes enough time to discuss.”
During this meeting, MEP Gabriele Bischoff commented on the importance of advancing solutions to the current situation: “In Europe there is a war, it is going to have social and economic consequences that we can already perceive, it is important to discuss solutions”.
In this regard, President Jordi Cañas added that “it is a good agreement for the whole of the European Union and MERCOSUR, it is a political agreement, it is an association that provides instruments, an agreement is better than no agreement”. The MEP also highlighted the issue of deforestation in the Amazon and the importance of having a timetable for the conclusion of the negotiations.
For his part, Paolo Garzotti, Head of the Trade Relations Unit with Latin America, (DG TRADE, European Commission) explained that “this is not just a trade agreement, it has a political and cooperation component, it is an agreement whose purpose is the way of working in the future (…) The instrument will not be limited to deforestation, it will be broader and will refer to sustainable development”.
Then Parliamentarian Gustavo Penades added that “trade has a fundamental element for the development of our peoples and is a central element of concern for our countries, for us and for you, it is difficult to explain to our peoples that we have been in business for 20 years. the discussion of a Treaty with the European Union”.
Finally, the Representative of Paraguay to the European Union, Ambassador Rigoberto Gauto Vielman, stated that “the Ambassadors are continuously transmitting to our governments to facilitate and to reach an understanding on this agreement.”
Likewise, Josep Puxeu, Civil Society Representative of the European Parliament, gave his opinion on “the need for Europe to have a joint voice in the search for solutions, we are at a time when food security and the energy crisis due to the impact of the war in Ukraine , makes us look for solutions, we must move and multilateralism is part of that solution” he concluded.
At the end of the meeting, MEP Jordi Cañas, President of the Delegation, announced that for the month of September, “a mission of MEPs will be sent to Uruguay and Paraguay to continue the meetings with colleagues from the MERCOSUR Parliament.” Likewise, he notified the declaration of a joint communiqué between the Presidency of PARLASUR and the Presidency of the Delegation of the European Parliament (see separate note).
