|
| |
|
Thursday, September 02, 2010 20:19
GMT |
|
|
MERCOSUR
Uruguay Tougher on Partners Than on Protectionist North
Ricardo Grassi
ROME, Oct 15 (IPS) - Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle is clear that, on
behalf of Mercosur, he must demand that the European Union open up its
agricultural markets, but he is also clear in his criticisms of Uruguay's
partners in the South American trade bloc.
"If we don't respect our different realities" in a treaty like the Southern
Common Market (Mercosur), where some members are "enormously huge" and
others are "enormously small", there is the danger of "generating
impediments for the smaller countries to develop," Batlle said in an
interview with IPS while in Rome this week.
Batlle is representing Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay,
with associate members Bolivia Chile) at a forum on Latin America organised
by the foreign ministry of Italy, which currently holds the rotating
presidency of the European Council.
The Uruguayan president said that in his closing address to the forum he
would argue that "the EU has a surplus of agricultural production based on
subsidies that we cannot compete against."
"We want better conditions so that we farm exporting countries arrive on the
market in equal conditions, otherwise, what sense is there in talking about
equitable distribution of resources and social equality?" said Batlle, who
holds the Mercosur chairmanship in this year's second semester.
The subsidies that the industrialised countries grant their farmers and
agricultural exports total more than 300 billion dollars a year, with the
EU, United States and Japan responsible for 80 percent of that sum.
Mercosur's sales to the EU have stagnated, largely due to the high tariffs
on farm and fish products, says a recent study by the Inter-American
Development Bank.
Trade between the two blocs grew more than five percent a year in the 1990s,
increasing from 22.7 billion dollars in 1991 to 36.3 billion in 2000.
But that was the result of more EU sales to Mercosur - 7.9 billion dollars
in 1991 grew to 21.7 billion in 2001, while imports went from 14.8 billion
dollars in 1991 to 21.8 billion in 2001.
"We have to return to the farm trade issue... feed the fire a bit" after the
failure of the 5th World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference, held
last month in the Mexican resort of Cancun, added Batlle.
But it is a pressing matter because Dec. 31 is the deadline for wrapping up
WTO negotiations on substantial reductions in farm subsidies, with sights on
elimination, and improvements in market access, among other issues.
Batlle said he fears that the expansion of the EU from its current 15
members to 25 (with 10 nations of Central and Eastern Europe slated to join
the bloc) will delay efforts to "seek understandings based on the
conversations that were coming along in Cancun."
The Uruguayan president was received Monday by Pope John Paul II, and will
be the keynote speaker for World Food Day, Thursday, at the Rome
headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
"Cancun was a big setback, and we all came out very disappointed because we
did not see any signs that we are willing to negotiate anything, even though
Europe and the United States seemed willing to initiate a deeper
conversations," he said.
In line with this analysis of the situation, Uruguay supported the working
text drawn up by WTO General Council chairman Carlos Pérez del Castillo (an
Uruguayan diplomat), and decided not to join the Group of 20 developing
countries that emerged as a counterweight to the EU and United States.
The G20, led by Brazil, China and India, said Pérez del Castillo's text did
not go far enough and demanded that the nations of the North eliminate their
agricultural subsidy systems.
The G20, whose membership has risen and fallen since Cancun, "had a proposal
that was impossible to carry forward. What's more, the agreements promoted
by Brazil and India ran counter to the Cairns Group position," he said.
Uruguay and Brazil, and 14 other agro-exporting countries are members of the
Cairns Group, which promotes efficient farming and presses for greater
liberalisation of farm trade, including the elimination of agricultural
subsidies.
"We believe the Cairns Group is a much more acceptable route for our
interests than what was established in the documents presented by Brazil and
India," said Batlle.
But in spite of his differences with Argentina and Brazil on this issue,
Batlle maintains that the distance between Uruguay and the rest of Mercosur
is not growing.
"If anything, Brazil's contradictions with Mercosur increased. It was Brazil
that separated from the bloc to make an agreement with India, not Uruguay.."
MERCOSUR SUBSIDISES TOO
- Are you as critical of the farm subsidies granted in Europe as you are of
those in the United States?
- I am against all subsidies, whether European or U.S., and I am also
against subsidies in this region. You might not be aware that there are
provinces in Argentina that live complete immersed in a subsidy system that
violates all the rules of Mercosur. Indirect subsidies - the failure to
collect taxes. Argentina has always been an agricultural country and never
had problems selling its products to the rest of the world. Everyone knows
that last year it harvested 35 million tons of soya. Not three, but 35
million! And it placed them on a global market full of subsidies. Brazil
harvested 55 million tons of soya. In other words, the two combined is 90
million tons, which is more than the United States, and they sold all of it.
Why talk about subsidies? Why don't we talk for once about realities instead
of fictions?
- Such as?
- Uruguay is basically an exporter of beef. It just so happens that there
is a horrific difference between the United States and Europe with respect
to the tariff for imports beyond the quota. If you want to bring beef into
Europe beyond the quota, you have to pay so much that it is impossible to
compete. But not in the United States.
- Has your good relationship with the United States led to changes in
bilateral trade relations?
- None. We have no special privileges. It is nothing more than a big, open
market, and we have high quality merchandise at good prices, we are
competitive and we are selling. Nothing more.
MERCOSUR IS TRADE, NOT POLITICS
Batlle says there are no tensions in Mercosur resulting from the ideological
differences between a liberal like himself, and the more left-leaning
presidents Néstor Kirchner, of Argentina, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvia, of
Brazil.
"The thing is, Mercosur is a trade treaty, not a political one, save for one
aspect, which has to do with maintaining democratic institutions in the
countries that are part of the group," he said.
It will be a long time, he said, before "we will have to subject our trade
and general political decisions to a higher order."
- In other words, you don't think Mercosur has matured enough, so you place
bilateral negotiations above those of the bloc?
- No, I don't place higher priority (on bilateral talks). I act according
to the reality in which we live, and Uruguay, as well as Argentina and
Brazil, is negotiating bilaterally with Mexico, in function of a decision
proposed by Brazil. Kirchner told me that in eight months the negotiations
between Argentina and Mexico would be finalised.
- So what is the problem?
- We have to respect our different realities. Brazil itself is an entire
continent; it has a huge domestic market, the possibility for major
investment... Uruguay doesn't have that. We have 3.3 million inhabitants,
187,000 square km and live off what we export. Democracy, in order to be
egalitarian, cannot treat 'unequals' equally, because there are those who
are enormously big and others who are enormously small. We have to have
respect for the big ones, like Brazil and Argentina, but we also have to
have a path for the small ones. If Mercosur does not allow us to continue
the route that Uruguay has been following with regard to Mexico - as part
of the bloc or bilaterally, like Argentina and Brazil are doing - then it
is going to generate impediments for the small countries (Uruguay and
Paraguay) to continue to develop.
(END/2003)
 |
|
|
