{"id":46939,"date":"2026-07-01T20:27:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/46939\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:27:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:27:02","slug":"germanys-top-diplomat-says-eu-mercosur-deal-still-has-issues-to-resolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/46939\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany&#8217;s Top Diplomat Says EU-Mercosur Deal Still Has Issues to Resolve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BUENOS AIRES, July 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Germany&#8217;s \u2060foreign \u2060minister, Johann Wadephul, said on \u2060Wednesday there were still &#8220;issues&#8221; to resolve before the European \u200bUnion&#8217;s trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc can be ratified, though he said he \u200cwas confident they could be \u200covercome.<\/p>\n<p>Wadephul&#8217;s comments came a day after a Mercosur summit in Paraguay, where \u2060member countries \u2060discussed the distribution of export quotas under their recently agreed deal \u200bwith the EU. The German official attended as part of a multi-day tour of South America.<\/p>\n<p>Mercosur, made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, signed the trade agreement \u200bwith the EU in January after 25 years of negotiations. It entered provisional \u2060force \u2060four months later.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Implementation will \u2060still take \u200bsome time. There will surely be some problems, but they are problems that \u200bcan be resolved,&#8221; Wadephul \u2060said at a press conference in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The decisive steps have already been taken. We want this agreement, and we will be able to resolve the problems that arise,&#8221; he added, without giving details on the remaining obstacles.<\/p>\n<p>Public disputes \u2060around the accord have centered on protections for EU farmers, opposition from \u2060some member states, legal questions over ratification and provisional application, environmental concerns including deforestation, and, on the Mercosur side, the unresolved quota allocation.<\/p>\n<p>The EU-Mercosur agreement creates a free trade area that includes the reduction and gradual elimination of tariffs, with immediate benefits for a broad range of products and phased tariff cuts for others.<\/p>\n<p>Trade between the two blocs, covering a market of 700 million people, reached 111 billion euros ($130.8 billion) \u2060in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>During the meeting, Wadephul and Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno also announced a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals aimed at expanding supply chains, amid growing demand for minerals such as lithium and \u200bcopper driven by the energy transition.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Writing by \u200bKylie Madry; Editing by Nick Zieminski)<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Photos You Should See \u2013 June 2026<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/june-26-pyss-u01.jpg\" alt=\"A woman's hand presses against a plastic sheet used to replace the shattered glass of a balcony door damaged in an Israeli strike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo\/Hassan Ammar)\" class=\"Image__PictureImage-sc-412cjc-1 bBgODV Image-sc-412cjc-2 SlideshowEmbed__Picture-fkpjfn-0 kQDDcT bUlaJL\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUENOS AIRES, July 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Germany&#8217;s \u2060foreign \u2060minister, Johann Wadephul, said on \u2060Wednesday there were still &#8220;issues&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[303,39558,387,983,151,722,5,5762,3496,4416,4690,8343,203,158],"class_list":["post-46939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-argentina","tag-bolivia","tag-brazil","tag-collections-top-news","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-germany","tag-international-trade","tag-paraguay","tag-reuters","tag-south-america","tag-tariffs","tag-top-news","tag-uruguay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}