Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Hooper (Conservative). It was answered on Monday, 18 January 2010.

EU: Free Trade Agreements

Question: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we debated bilateral EU trade agreements in this House during the last Spanish presidency in 2002? Can the noble Lord give us a feel for how existing bilateral agreements are working, perhaps starting with Mexico and of course including Brazil and Chile, before we embark on the next round of negotiations?

Answer: My Lords, I could go on an extended tour of Latin America. The EU’s free-trade agreement with Mexico is working well but needs to be extended and deepened to embrace services trade; and with Chile it is working exceedingly well in all areas of trade. We do not have a bilateral agreement with Brazil. We have an outstanding negotiation between the EU and the Mercosur countries, which include Brazil, but that is being held up by the delays in the multilateral negotiations in the Doha round. My preference would be to see the EU-Mercosur negotiations restarted because to wait for the completion of the Doha round would be a little long.

Secondary information