Following 26 years of negotiations and a string of setbacks that threatened to scupper it, representatives of the Mercosur countries and the European commission signed the EU-Mercosur trade deal at a ceremony in Asunción, Paraguay, on Saturday. 

The agreement creates the world’s largest free-trade area, comprising more than 715 million people. Regional leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have endorsed it as a powerful gesture of multilateral cooperation, peace, and free trade at a time when world powers such as the U.S. are turning towards protectionism and a worldview guided by spheres of influence. 

However, the deal has faced opposition due to fears about price suppression and possible harm to South America’s local industries.

Speaking as Mercosur’s rotating leader, Paraguayan President Santiago Peña told the audience: “We could have reached an even better deal, we could have got more benefits for our presidents.”

“For that reason, I would like to challenge you all: let us look to the future with greater courage, with greater audacity, and let us expand even further our perfectible union in a complex world, in which old certainties are wavering before our eyes.” 

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He called for South America and Europe to be “not just spectators, but the main actors in the history of........

© Buenos Aires Herald