All it took was two days. On Friday 1 December, the Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated via his social networks that Mercosur and the European Union were “close to concluding” their trade agreement. This was without taking into account Argentina, which, the very next day, dashed the shared hopes, declaring that “the conditions are not in place” for ratification. And which puts off the prospects for the free trade agreement to an uncertain future.
The outgoing...