The presidents of the Mercosur bloc will meet this Saturday (December 20, 2025) in the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguazú to find a response to the postponement of the free trade agreement with the European Union while evaluating approaches with other trading partners.
As host of the summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the meeting. “The world is longing for agreements with Mercosur,” he declared in his opening speech, although he did not specifically mention the postponement of the signing of the trade agreement with the European Union, which was scheduled for this Saturday and may have been postponed to January 12 in Paraguay. Lula also referred to the current military escalation in the Caribbean. “An armed intervention in Venezuela would be a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.
Lula asks to take advantage of the situation
The progressive leader said that there are several countries interested in trade deals with the bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay and that Mercosur must take advantage of this situation to sign possible deals. “I hope that we have good international agreements for six months,” Lula said, recalling that this Saturday Brazil will transfer the temporary presidency of Mercosur to Paraguay, which will exercise it in the first half of 2026.
Although the European Council announced on Thursday that it did not have the necessary support to authorize the signing of the agreement as planned this Saturday and proposed a postponement to January 12 in Paraguay, the heads of state of the four Mercosur countries attended the meeting. In addition to the host president, Argentina’s heads of state and government, Javier Milei, also took part in the summit in Foz de Iguazú; Paraguay, Santiago Pena; and Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi.
“The deadlines are not infinite”
Although Lula himself had warned that Mercosur would abandon the agreement if it was not signed on Saturday, foreign ministers at the previous foreign ministers’ meeting on Friday admitted their “disappointment” at the new postponement but said they would wait for the European Union to overcome its differences.
“We are ready to move forward, understanding that Europe has its deadlines to comply with internal institutional issues, but at the same time the deadlines are not unlimited,” Paraguayan Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez told reporters after a meeting with his Mercosur counterparts.
LGC (AFP, EFE)
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