European Commission Directorate-General for Trade

Argentina

Argentina is an important trading partner for Europe and a big purveyor of agricultural goods and primary products to the EU

Europe is Argentina's second export market after Brazil before China and US. It is part of Mercosur and part of the EU's negotiations for a free trade agreement with that regional group. The EU has an important deficit in trade in goods of €3.4 billion with Argentina, despite an overall trade surplus in services with Argentina of €0,4 billion.

The EU is also the biggest foreign investor in Argentina, accounting for about half of the FDI in Argentina with EU's investment stocks in 2011 worth € 49.5 billion and  important investments in areas such as telecoms, automotive or energy.  Europe and Argentina cooperate to facilitate or remove trade and investment in such areas as food and health standards or rules in areas like  intellectual property.

EU-Mercosur negotiations

The backbone of the EU's future bilateral trade relations with Argentina will be a wide-ranging EU-Mercosur Association Agreement which will also result in the creation of a vast free trade area. This agreement which is currently under negotiation should provide a boost to regional trade integration among the countries of Mercosur and stimulate new opportunities for trade with the EU by removing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. The Mercosur-EU Association Agreement will cover, among other issues, trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property rights (IPR) aspects including protection of geographical indications, government procurement, technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary issues.

Until summer 2004 there was gradual but substantial progress in the EU negotiations, which,however, stalled in September 2004. Since then, regular contacts have taken place both at ministerial and technical level in order to explore ways on how to re-engage the process. The Madrid Summit in May 2010, which brought together Heads of State and Governments from Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, as well as important non-state actors, resulted in a decision to re-launch negotiations for an EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement - a process which is now under way.

WTO

A successful conclusion of the Doha round would contribute significantly to a more open and stable environment for trade and investment for both the EU and Argentina. Argentina is part of the G20 group of advanced developing countries; a group which the EU has urged to show the greatest possible flexibility in order to reach a successful outcome to the Doha talks.