EU Pushes Ahead to Ratify Trade Deal With South American Nations

The European Union is advancing its efforts to ratify a proposed trade deal with Mercosur countries by the end of the year after proposing safeguard measures to get France and other skeptical countries on board.

The European Commission published the final text of its free-trade agreement with the South American economies of the Mercosur bloc on Wednesday, which includes a mechanism to protect European agricultural producers.

Under the proposal, an investigation will be launched if the volume of imports from Mercosur countries increases by 10% or the prices of agricultural commodities fall by 10%.

“We had very, very intense exchanges ...