European Union

The current global economic crisis is making it more difficult to use migration as a
mechanism for the diversification of employment and earning among countries because
the main destinations for Latin American migrants, such as the United States and Spain,
are suffering recession, losing jobs and reducing employment opportunities for foreigners.
The dual trends in the past two decades of globalization and democratization must now
be accompanied by better treatment of migration issues, including open borders for
migrants, the provision of a regularized legal status and the enforcement of labour
rights for migrants, as well as modern treatment of the circulation of knowledge, and
of student and medical migration. Latin America and Europe have a mutual historical
relationship of the international movement of people that needs to be preserved at times
of economic hardship. The current system of international factor mobility facilitates the
movement of capital from north to south but restricts the movement of labour from
south to north. History teaches that economic nationalism in labour markets, such
as in the 1920s and 1930s, entails xenophobia and global welfare costs by preventing
the international movement of human resources from countries with low productivity
levels to those with higher levels of productivity, and is also inimical to a fair, global and
prosperous economic order that sees beyond business cycles towards long-term stability
and progress.

The trade-sustainable impact assessment of the European Union-Mercosur trade
agreement found that the economic impact of the trade liberalisation scenario could be
positive in the agriculture sector of Mercosur countries. However, it also found that the
social and environmental impacts would be mixed and potentially detrimental. This paper
addresses the likely effects on the livelihoods of vulnerable rural populations. It argues
that the potential impacts can be analysed within a diversified livelihood strategies
framework, which is expanded to include institutional and policy factors. It concludes
that the negative expected impact responds to the highly uneven access to capital
assets. On the other hand, the effects are not generalised to all Mercosur countries, nor
to all regions in each of the member countries. Enhancing or mitigating measures refer
to the importance of sequencing and regulation to improve disadvantaged groups’
abilities to participate in trade-led agricultural intensification or industrialisation
processes.