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MONTEVIDEO, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The British vote to leave the European Union (EU) has made the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) less confident about the prospect of reaching a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU.
Uruguay, Mercosur's current rotating president which leads negotiations with Brussels, is especially concerned about the new development in the EU.
"We have to monitor (the situation) because it could complicate" the FTA negotiations between Mercosur and the EU, Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez said.
In the opinion of Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa, Brexit could distract the Mercosur-EU negotiations, which started in 1999 and were resumed in 2010 after a six-year standstill.
According to local daily El Observador, Europe "will cool down (trade) negotiations a lot" with Mercosur due to Brexit and also its "contagion effect" causing other European countries to follow suit.
The daily quoted an expert as saying that Brexit can also cause repercussions within the Mercosur, a South American bloc founded in 1991,grouping Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
"Perhaps it isn't unreasonable to expect many voices from within the South American bloc to come forward saying that 'if the Europeans can decide to be or not to be part of an integration bloc, why can't we?'" the expert said.
Ignacio Bartesaghi, director of the Department of International Business and Integration in Uruguay's Catholic University, said that at the moment, the European Commission will have other priorities, which will affect the Mercosur-EU negotiations.
The two sides exchanged their very first tariff offers in May.
Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra has also expressed a "great concern" about Brexit.
"It is a shake-up for the world's institutions. (Britain's) leaving worries us enormously," local media quoted her as saying.
However, with regard to the Mercosur-EU negotiation, she believed "things will progress and they are going to come to a good conclusion."
