While a vote by the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU to approve the trade agreement with the Mercosur countries is scheduled for Friday 9 January, the ‘extraordinary’ meeting of the European agriculture ministers on Wednesday 7 January was intended in part to reassure reluctant Member States.
The main challenge is to obtain a favourable vote from Italy, which did an about-face at the end of December and asked for the signature of the agreement to be postponed (see EUROPE...