SAO PAULO European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy questioned Tuesday the benefits of creating a free trade area of the Americas, arguing the European Union was offering members of the South American trading bloc Mercosur a better deal, AFP reported.

"I'm inclined to see in the FTAA a framework for developing relations between the north and the south," Lamy told a group of local business leaders. "I'm asking myself about the cost of such integration."

The European commissioner said he believed all trade between the north and the south was "unequal and unbalanced."