> On Saturday, I was in Asunción, in Paraguay, to sign the EU-Mercosur trade agreement. It was a breakthrough after 25 years of negotiations. And with it, the EU and Latin America have created the largest free trade zone in the world. A market worth over 20% of global GDP. 31 countries with over 700 million consumers. Aligned with the Paris Agreement. This agreement sends a powerful message to the world. That we are choosing fair trade over tariffs.

As someone who lives in EU, been skeptical of it for most my life, but for the last 3-4 years kind of turned around on the idea of a stronger EU and more independent Europe, I'm really glad to see and hear that things are swiftly moving ahead. Things like this may seem relatively small, especially with everything going around, but these sort of partnerships and agreements really do have a large impact on the next decades, and I hope we'll see more of this. Fair trade is something we've taken for granted, but we've again learned that it's something you have to fight for, and I'm happy to live in the EU who seem to still realize it's important.

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alephnerd 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The Mercosur deal is frozen now as it's just been referred to the CJEU [0], which means at least 1-2 years of litigation.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-lawmakers-vote-whether-laun...

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embedding-shape 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Hmm, less ideal.

> A group of 144 lawmakers put forward a parliamentary motion to ask the EU Court of Justice to rule on whether the agreement can be applied before full ratification by all member states and whether its provisions restrict the EU's ability to set environmental and consumer health policies. The court typically takes around two years to deliver such opinions.

Hopefully the court will take a look around what's going on the world, and get a little bit of push to act a bit faster, although hopefully not compromising on "environmental and consumer health policies", that'd be a blunder of it's own.

	▲	alephnerd 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The issue is this sends a negative message to Mercosur member states like Brazil, who are actively being wooed by the US such as by creating a US-Brazil Rare Earths Deal [0] and wooing Brazilian oligarch Batista brothers [1] (the oligarchs who owns much of Brazil's and North+South American agricultural capacity [2] and are the power behind the throne in Brazil) to get near-exclusive rights on distributing Venezuelan oil [3]. Now that the deal is de facto frozen, any remaining goodwill between Mercosur states and the EU will burn away (especially because Lula put his personal reputation on the line right before a highly contested election in Brazil and because Spanish politicians constantly meddle in South American culture wars [4] due to familial, financial, and linguistic ties), leaving the EU even more alone in an already lonely and dangerous world. > although hopefully not compromising on "environmental and consumer health policies", that'd be a blunder of it's own. This kind of stubbornness is why the EU is increasingly being isolated globally. Either make pragmatic deals on your own terms or end up being forced to by other countries on their terms. [0] - https://www.ft.com/content/401a9e84-3034-4375-bf39-56b92500c... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/brazil-billionaire-b... [2] - https://www.ft.com/content/d293237e-e39f-4f4c-89e7-4c52cf937... [3] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-19/irmaos-ba... [4] - https://apnews.com/general-news-d45baf0e625d4e0fa540b7a472bc...