This is meeting stiff French resistance.
"The negotiations must now be finalised quickly," Scholz said in a speech in Berlin to the German wholesale and foreign trade association BGA.
Technical discussions on the free trade pact "are at an advanced stage," he said, adding that "the vast majority of EU member states also support the agreement politically."
"We need pragmatism and flexibility from all sides for the final meters of the negotiations because the Mercosur agreement is groundbreaking for diversification and strengthening the resilience of our economy," said Scholz, who met French President Emmanuel Macron in Berlin.
The 27-member European Union and the Mercosur countries - Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay - have been negotiating for more than two decades to create a massive free trade area that will cover more than 700 million people.
The agreement aims to reduce import tariffs on industrial and pharmaceutical goods, mainly European, as well as agricultural products.
The outlines of the deal were agreed in 2019, but the final version was not ratified.
Germany, Italy and Spain are among the European countries that support the deal, but others, such as France, have opposed it, citing concerns about cheap imports of agricultural products and enforcement of environmental standards.
During his visit to Brazil in March, Macron said the current deal was "really bad".
In particular, he called for clauses to protect European farmers, ensuring that imported agricultural products meet the same standards as those produced in the EU. | BGNES
