Hypocritical EU trade policy

"After the temporary failure of the Mercosur negotiations, the EU is at a crossroads. It has to decide what it wants to achieve: push back China or push for the perfect agreement until it stands alone?

 

It doesn't work in EU trade policy. The negotiations with Australia have just failed, now the talks with the South American Mercosur states are at stake. A few meters before the finish line, both sides slammed on the brakes. Everything was prepared for the final round of negotiations at the Mercosur summit in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would have arrived to announce the success. But nothing will come of it.

 

 The flights have been cancelled. Even the EU negotiating team remains in Brussels.

 

The Mercosur agreement is in danger of ending up in the much-cited freezer. Spain, which has been working hard towards agreement, will hand over the EU Council Presidency to Belgium at the end of December. The country is not considered a fighter for free trade. At the same time, Paraguay will take over the Mercosur presidency from heavyweight Brazil after the summit.

 

The EU has to decide

 

Above all, the European elections in June are getting closer. Given the combined resistance of the farmers' lobby and climate activists to the agreement, this makes a breakthrough politically difficult, if not impossible. French President Emmanuel Macron is already insisting that the agreement not be touched upon before the elections.

 

Blaming the South Americans for this is as wrong as it is hypocritical. On the face of it, the confusing situation in Argentina after the election of the "anarcho-capitalist" Javier Milei as president may be the reason for the current standstill. Without the EU's additional demands for the protection of the rainforest and local farmers, the Mercosur agreement could long ago be dead.

 

The EU must finally decide what it actually wants to achieve with its trade policy. Does it want to deepen its relations with the rest of the world and thereby both break away from China and limit China's geopolitical influence? Or keep pushing for the “perfect” agreement until EU finds herself without any new partners?" [1]

 

You see, most of us Europeans don't know where that South America is. We are now concerned with our Galactic-level fight: Who will win, Zelensky defeats Zaluzhny or Zaluzhny defeats Zelensky (two Ukrainians here, in case you don't know even this).

 

1. Scheinheilige EU-Handelspolitik
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online)Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Dec 4, 2023. Von Hendrik Kafsack