BERLIN, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A failure to conclude the trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the South American trade bloc Mercosur would be a "missed opportunity," Dirk Jandura, president of the Federation of German Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA), said in a statement on Tuesday.
"A final collapse of the negotiations would be a major missed opportunity for both sides," Jandura said. "Without an agreement, Europe will inevitably fall behind our global competitors in Latin America in geo-economic terms."
Mercosur, a Spanish abbreviation for the Southern Common Market, consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The EU has been in talks with the four Mercosur countries about the free trade zone for 23 years.
In 2019, Mercosur and the EU reached a comprehensive trade agreement, which is still pending after Mercosur rejected environmental clauses that the EU attached to the trade deal earlier this year.
For Germany as a major trading nation, the failure of the Mercosur agreement would be a "serious blow," Jandura stressed. A deepening of trade relations between the EU and Mercosur would also be "urgently needed for our economy."
At a meeting in Berlin on Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged a swift conclusion to the free trade agreement. "We are strongly committed that the agreement will now be finalized quickly," Scholz stressed.
