Potential EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement: Impact Assessment
- Authors: A. Burrell, E. Ferrari, A. González Mellado, M. Himics, J. Michalek, S. Shrestha and B. Van Doorslaer
- EUR Number: 25011 EN
- Publication date: 12/2011
Abstract
This report presents the simulations made with two different models of two alternative hypothetical versions of a bilateral free trade agreement
between the EU and Mercosur. The two versions of the agreement are based on the final negotiating positions of each party in the previous
unresolved negotiating round. A global CGE model, GLOBE, simulates the economy-wide impacts of the trade policy changes involving all
sectors of the two regional blocks. A global partial equilibrium model, CAPRI, simulates only the impacts generated by changes in agricultural
trade policy and incurred by the agricultural sectors of the two regions. However, CAPRI considers individual agricultural products in more
detail and can generate the territorial distribution of their production within the EU at the NUTS 2 regional level.
The simulation results show that the economic losses and the adjustment pressures arising from a bilateral trade agreement between the EU
and the countries of Mercosur would, as far as the EU is concerned, fall very heavily on the agricultural sector. The gains to other sectors would
be widely diffused and, given the very small magnitude of these gains relative to the EU economy as a whole, would be easily absorbed without
imposing an adjustment burden. The aggregate welfare changes for the EU would be small. However, the trade-off involved in the
redistribution of income between agriculture and the rest of the economy is steeper in the scenarios depicting the terms requested by Mercosur
than in those involving the terms offered by the EU. The Mercosur request provokes a much greater downward impact on EU agriculture
whereas the additional gains elsewhere (to non-agrifood sectors or to consumers in the EU) are relatively smaller.
The report is accompanied by an ANNEX Report (Volume 2)
Documents available
| Document | Format | Size | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publication | application/pdf | 1.81 MB | HTTP FTP |
Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
You will need the Adobe Acrobat reader to view any reports you download. Click on the icon below to obtain the reader (free of charge) if it is not already installed on your computer.
