(EU) and the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR)? - FDCL

5.3 The EU-MERCOSUR association agreement: The deregulation of national
markets through the regulation of international markets?
The EU and MERCOSUR, after the “failure” of Cancún, have repeatedly emphasized
their interest in finalizing an “Interregional Association Agreement”. A conclusion
to this agreement – with the “ambitious and innovative provisions” of the so-called
“fourth generation” – will now, after the EU-Mexico and EU-Chile agreements, be attempted
within the EU-MERCOSUR context in the course of the coming months.
Following the last EU-MERCOSUR ministerial meeting in Brussels on November
12, 2003 the negotiation plan of the coming sessions of the bi-regional negotiation
committee (BNC) was tightened, so that the treaty will be prepared for the final consultations
at the next meeting of the heads of state of Latin America, the Caribbean
and Europe from May 28-29 at Guadalajara, Mexico, and could be signed, according
to the plan, in October 2004.
The issue of investment will play a central role here, which will have to be
matched by the pretensions of the European Commission, which untiringly praises
the compatibility of trade and investment with development. But so far the focus of
the EU-MERCOSUR negotiation process seems to have favored trade and investment,
so that the warning of the assessment expressed by civil society already in
2002 continues to be valid:
“It is time to rethink the process of international investment agreements thoroughly.
In particular the relationship between bilateral investment agreements
and multilateral or interregional agreements needs to be articulated much
more carefully and explicitly than has happened to date. That does not appear
to be happening within the EU/MERCOSUR process.” 331
It not only has to be feared that, within the framework of the broad free trade
agenda between the EU and MERCOSUR questions of development will become
secondary just like the verbal avowals for human rights, but also that national scope
of decision making with respect to development will be subjected to the dictum of
profit and efficiency by means of the
a) Proposed free trade agreement.
b) Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with their far-reaching investors’ rights, which
have already been ratified or are near to ratification.
331 Konrad von Moltke (International Institute for Sustainable Development): European Union / MERCOSUR
Negotiations. The Environment and Sustainable Development Dimension, edited by: WWF European Policy Office,
Belgium & WWF Brazil, April 2002, p. 23.
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