The EU's Beef with Mercosur: Geo-economics versus Climate Diplomacy By Detlef Nolte This series explores the international dimensions of Latin America’s environmental challenges and the role of environmental issues in shaping the region’s most important diplomatic and economic relationships. LATIN AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE INTRODUCTION The Southern Common Market (Mercosur) was founded in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay (the membership of Venezuela, which became a full member of Mercosur only in 2012, has been suspended indefinitely since December 2016). Mercosur and the European Union (EU) began preliminary consultations about a comprehensive as- sociation and free trade agreement in the mid-1990s. Negotiations formally began in 1999 (with a first tariff offer from the EU in 2001), and then dragged on intermittently, with many ups and downs, for almost 20 years. The negotiations were fraught with unreal- istic expectations and misconceptions on both sides, and were often overshadowed by other multilateral trade negotiations. 1 Central points of contention have been EU demands for an extensive opening of the Mercosur market to industrial goods, which are in part protected by high import duties, and the open- ing of public procurement for European companies, together with Mercosur demands for better access for their competitive agricultural exports to the highly protected European agricultural market. Finally, on June 28, 2019, to the surprise of many observers, the two parties reached an understanding on the content of a free trade agreement (FTA) as Photo credit: Cattle pasture next to a burned section of the Amazon rainforest in Castelo dos Sonhos, Pará, Brazil: Paralaxis, Shutterstock Latin American Program Environmental Change and Security Program Global Europe Program China Environment Forum Brazil Institute October 2021