EU-Mercosur Relations: From Benign Neglect to Contested Values
In a new paper, Michelle Egan, a global fellow in the Wilson Center’s Global Europe Program and a professor at American University, examines the ongoing tensions between the EU and Mercosur over finalizing their long-stalled trade agreement. Egan explains how clashes over agriculture, sustainability standards, and deforestation have obstructed progress. On the one side, he describes, environmental groups and EU member states continue to object to the agreement’s lack of strong sustainability and climate provisions. On the other side, Latin American leaders keep pushing back against EU efforts to strengthen concrete sustainability commitments in the EU-Mercosur trade deal, seen as “green neocolonialism” threatening sovereignty.
About the Author
Michelle Egan
Professor and Jean Monnet Chair ad personam, School of International Service, American University
Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more
Brazil Institute
The Brazil Institute—the only country-specific policy institution focused on Brazil in Washington—works to foster understanding of Brazil’s complex reality and to support more consequential relations between Brazilian and U.S. institutions in all sectors. Read more
Global Europe Program
The Global Europe Program addresses vital issues affecting the European continent, US-European relations, and Europe’s ties with the rest of the world. We investigate European approaches to critical global issues: digital transformation, climate, migration, global governance. We also examine Europe’s relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our program activities cover a wide range of topics, from the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE to European energy security, trade disputes, challenges to democracy, and counter-terrorism. The Global Europe Program’s staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media. Read more
