The XLV summit of the Southern Common Market has today the ministerial prelude that will finalise the agenda on which the presidents of the bloc’s member countries will decide on 6 December.

The meeting will be the last for host president Luis Lacalle Pou, whose country will hand over the pro tempore presidency to Argentina.

President Javier Milei will be making his debut at the summit after his notorious absence from the previous summit in Paraguay.

Press sources confirm the presence of the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen.

Her participation raises expectations regarding the conclusion of the technical agreement between the two blocs, which have been negotiating a trade agreement for a quarter of a century.

Beyond the advances in the technical negotiations, the agreement faces political difficulties due to the resistance of some European countries, pressured by mobilisations of their farmers opposed to an agreement between Mercosur and the European Union (EU).

The EC has authorisation from the EU partners to end the negotiations when it deems it convenient, but the agreement must then be ratified by parliaments.

Mercosur and the EC have been negotiating for the past week in Brasilia, under the auspices of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has given a decisive push to the talks. The negotiations were centred on compensation for the environmental agenda imposed by the Europeans on all food and agricultural imports.

Brazil has also proposed reopening the chapter on government procurement to defend its ‘reindustrialisation’ policy.

Von der Leyen is scheduled to meet today with President Lacalle Pou at the Executive Tower, the headquarters of the presidential office.

The foreign ministers’ meeting could set the tone for the meeting of heads of state and government, with positions that seek to make Mercosur’s rules more flexible so that everyone can seek extra-regional preferential agreements.

Also of isolationist positions and positions detrimental to the bloc’s social policies, which could be on President Milei’s agenda.

The meeting in the Mercosur building, the group’s headquarters on Montevideo’s Rambla, will be the occasion for the approval of Panama as a member, which will motivate the attendance of the President of the Isthmus, José Raúl Mulino.