Why the world is watching the EU-Latin American deal’s fate

IN OSCAR Wilde’s masterful play The Importance of Being Ernest, first performed in 1895, Lady Bracknell famously says that “to lose one parent… may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness”.

Fast forward more than a century, and in a very different context, this same sentiment is being felt in much of Brussels at the moment, with the potential failure of the European Union’s trade negotiations with Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) – because the possible collapse of the discussions comes swiftly on the heels of the failure of the bloc’s trade talks with Australia in recent weeks.

Speculation had recently grown that an EU-Mercosur deal could be concluded at this week’s Mercosur summit in Brazil. However, that prospect seems to have been extinguished after recent comments from incoming Argentina President Javier Milei, an anarcho-capitalist political maverick who takes office on Sunday (Dec 10), plus French President Emmanuel Macron.