Vienna is hosting the European-Latin American summit May 11-13, with May 12 reserved for the heads of state and government summit. All in all, some 60 heads of state are attending what is proving to be a heady mix of rhetoric and recrimination.

With two-way trade between Europe and Latin America now at $150 billion a year, one would think that such a broad, high-level gathering would be the perfect opportunity to launch a massive free-trade association.

One would be wrong.

Trade negotiations between the European Union and any Latin American grouping -- whether Mercosur, the Andean Community or Latin America en masse -- will go nowhere. The core problems are that Latin America's primary exports to Europe would be agricultural, while Europe (particularly France) refuses to reform its agricultural subsidies, and Europe's primary exports to Latin America would be manufactured goods that Latin America's import substitution programs are specifically designed to keep out. Round after round of talks have been held for nearly a decade, and the current discussions, like all the others, will not create any meaningful progress.

Beyond limited trade opportunities, there is not much to speak of in terms of grounds for cooperation. Latin America wants European investment, but the nationalizing impulse in Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela is generating criticism, not enthusiasm, from Europe. Argentina is hinting it is about to nationalize the YPF portion of Spain's Repsol-YPF. Bolivia recently nationalized its entire energy complex, and Bolivian President Evo Morales used the summit as an opportunity to make it clear he is nowhere near finished. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, in a bizarre game of one-upmanship, noted that his government had just taken control of $17 billion worth of foreign projects in the country's heavy oil belt.

Thus, the summit quickly degenerated to a tone normally reserved for talks with the United States, with the Europeans lecturing about the rule of law and some Latin Americans beating the populist drums.

But Latin America is not a unitary place; it is a constellation of states with very different outlooks.

Perhaps the most interesting development during the summit was the Mexican and Brazilian delegations' direct criticism of the recent goings-on in Venezuela and particularly Bolivia. Brazil and Mexico are the two Latin American powerhouses, and the leaders of both states have made names for themselves as the heads of modern, relatively economically liberal governments. Though the Mexican government had expressed disdain toward Venezuela and the shift against negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, this is the first time Brazil has openly criticized Caracas. That reaction developed directly from Bolivia's nationalization decision. Partially state-owned Brazilian energy major Petroleo Brasileiro SA was a major investor in the Bolivian oil patch and has seen a decade's worth of work disappear overnight; thus, Brazil has been directly affected by Chavez's encouragement of Morales' policies.

There are other ongoing crises in the different Latin American cooperation structures. In the southern cone, Mercosur is experiencing one of its toughest moments. Argentina and Uruguay are involved in a conflict caused by Buenos Aires' resistance to the construction of two paper plants on the Uruguayan side of the border, and Uruguay is threatening to leave Mercosur and seek a separate trade and investment pact with the United States. In the northern part of South America, Colombia's and Peru's decisions to negotiate and sign free trade agreements with the United States has given Chavez a pretext to abandon the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), throwing talks among Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela into disarray.

Confirming its displeasure with what is going on in South America, the European Union announced during the summit that it will only negotiate trade agreements with blocs like Mercosur or CAN, rather than with individual countries, which means Europe is basically canceling the possibility of starting negotiations in the short term.

The Central American countries, which historically have missed opportunities because of years of civil wars, are starting to look like model countries for Latin America. It is these states -- El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua -- that recently ratified a free trade agreement with the United States (although in Costa Rica the document has been signed but not ratified). These states are more open to broad trade, making them more willing to compromise, and are far smaller than South American giant Brazil, which makes the Europeans more willing to offer them exemptions. Combined with already standing EU association agreements with Mexico and Chile, such a minor trade deal is probably all that can be hoped for in Latin American-European relations.