Following tense negotiations among the 27 member states, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday pushed the signature of the contentious Mercosur agreement to January to the frustration of backers Germany and Spain.
The trade deal dominated the EU summit, with France and Italy pressing for a delay to secure stronger farmer protections, while von der Leyen had hoped to travel to Latin America for a signing ceremony on 20 December after securing member-state support.
Without approval, the ceremony can no longer go ahead. There is not set date.
“The Commission proposed that it postpones to early January the signature to further discuss with the countries who still need a bit more time,” an EU official told reporters.
After a phone call with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she supported the deal, but added that Rome still needs stronger assurances for Italian farmers. Lula said in separate comments that Meloni assured him the trade deal would be approved in the next 10 days to a month.
The Mercosur agreement would create a free-trade area between the EU and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. But European farmers fear it would expose them to unfair competition from Latin American imports on pricing and practices.
Meloni’s decision was pivotal to delay
“The Italian government is ready to sign the agreement as soon as the necessary answers are provided to farmers. This would depend on the decisions of the European Commission and can be defined within a short timeframe,” Meloni said after speaking with Lula, who had threatened to walk away from the deal unless an agreement was found this month. He sounded more conciliatory after speaking to Meloni.
Talks among EU leaders were fraught, as backers of the deal – concluded in 2024 after 25 years of negotiations – argued the Mercosur is an imperative as the bloc needs new markets at a time in which the US, its biggest trading partner, pursues an aggressive tariff policy. Duties on European exports to the US have tripled under Donald Trump.
“This is one of the most difficult EU summits since the last negotiation of the long-term budget two years ago,” an EU diplomat said.
France began pushing last Sunday for a delay in the vote amid farmers’ anger.
Paris has long opposed the deal, demanding robust safeguards for farmers and reciprocity on environmental and health production standards with Mercosur countries.
The agreement requires a qualified majority for approval. France, Poland and Hungary oppose the signature, while Austria and Belgium planned to abstain if a vote were held this week. Ireland has also raised concerns over farmer protections.
Italy’s stance was pivotal.
However, supporters of the agreement now fear prolonged hesitation could prompt Mercosur countries to walk away after decades of negotiations for good.
After speaking with Meloni, Lula said he would pass Italy’s request on to Mercosur so that it can “decide what to do.”
An EU official said contacts with Mercosur were “ongoing,” adding: “We need to make sure that everything is accepted by them.”
Rob Reiner was a movie director who began as an actor who wanted to direct movies. The bridge between these careers was “This Is Spinal Tap” in 1984, his first proper film, in which he also acted. His original inclination, based on the music documentaries he had studied, had been not to appear onscreen, but he decided there was practical value in greeting the audience with a face familiar from eight seasons of “All in the Family” as Archie Bunker’s left-wing son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic.
Reiner’s television career began at 21, partnered with Steve Martin, writing for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” As an actor, his early years were characterized by the small parts and guest shots that describe the early career of many performers we come to know well. He played multiple characters on episodes of “That Girl” and “Gomer Pyle, USMC,” a delivery boy on “Batman,” and appeared on “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Room 222.” His last such role, in 1971, the same year “All in the Family” premiered, was on “The Partridge Family” as a tender-hearted, poetry-writing, tattooed biker who becomes attached to Susan Dey‘s character and somewhat improbably takes her to a school dance. It’s a performance that prefigures the tenderness and humanity that would become a signature of his work as a writer, director and performer — and, seemingly, a person.
On “All in the Family,” in his jeans and work shirt, with a drooping mustache that seemed to accentuate a note of sadness, Reiner largely played the straight man, an irritant to Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, teeing up the issue-oriented dialectic. Once in a while he’d be given a broad comic meal to chew, as when wife Gloria (Sally Struthers) goes into labor while they’re out for dinner, and he accelerates into classic expectant-father sitcom panic. But minus the “Meathead” material, “All in the Family” is as much a social drama as it is a comedy, with Mike and Gloria struggling with money, living with her parents, new parenthood, and a relationship that blows hot and cold until it finally blows out for good. He’s not a Comic Creation, like Archie or Edith with their malaprops and mispronunciations, or even Gloria, but his importance to the storytelling was certified by two supporting actor Emmys.
Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, Caroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton in a scene from Norman Lear’s television series “All in the Family.”
(Bettmann Archive via Getty Image)
What Reiner carried from “Family” into his later appearances was a sort of bigness. He could seem loud — and loudness is something Norman Lear’s shows reveled in — even when he’s speaking quietly. Physically he occupied a lot of space, more as time went on, and beginning perhaps with “Spinal Tap,” in which he played director Marty DiBergi, he transformed tonally into a sort of gentle Jewish Buddha. In the 2020 miniseries “Hollywood,” Ryan Murphy’s alternate history of the 1930s picture business, the studio head he plays is not the desk-banger of cliche, but he is a man with an appetite. (“Get me some brisket and some of those cheesy potatoes and a lemon meringue pie,” he tells a commissary waiter — against doctor’s orders, having just emerged from a heart attack-induced coma. “One meal’s not going to kill me.”) He’s the boss, but, in a scene as lovely as it is historically unlikely, he allows his wife (Patti LuPone), who has been running things during his absence, to also be the boss.
Reiner left “All in the Family” in 1978, after its eighth season to explore life outside Michael Stivic. (In 1976, while still starring on “Family,” he tested those waters, appearing on an episode of “The Rockford Files” as a narcissistic third-rate football player.) “Free Country,” which he co-created with frequent writing partner Phil Mishkin, about a family of Lithuanian immigrants in the early 1900s, aired five episodes that summer. The same year, ABC broadcast the Reiner-Mishkin-penned TV movie “More Than Friends” (available on Apple TV) in which Reiner co-starred with then-wife Penny Marshall. Directed by James Burrows, whose dance card would fill up with “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “3rd Rock From the Sun,” it’s in some respects a dry run for Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally…,” tracking a not-quite-romantic but ultimately destined relationship across time.
Future Spinal Tap lead singer Michael McKean appears there as a protest singer, while the 1982 CBS TV movie “Million Dollar Infield,” written again with Mishkin, features Reiner alongside future Spinal Tap lead guitarist Christopher Guest and bassist Harry Shearer; it’s a story of baseball, families and therapy. Co-star Bruno Kirby the year before had co-written and starred in Reiner’s directorial debut, “Tommy Rispoli: A Man and His Music,” a short film that aired on the long-gone subscription service On TV as part of the “Likely Stories” anthology. Kirby’s character, a Frank Sinatra-loving limo driver (driving Reiner as himself), found its way into “This Is Spinal Tap,” though here he is the center of a Reineresque love story.
After “Spinal Tap,” as Reiner’s directing career went from strength to strength, he continued to act in other people’s pictures (“Sleepless in Seattle,” “Primary Colors,” “Bullets Over Broadway” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” to name but a few) and some of his his own, up to this year’s “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.” On television, he mostly played himself, which is to say versions of himself, on shows including “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, of all things, “Hannah Montana,” with a few notable exceptions.
Rob Reiner and Jamie Lee Curtis play the divorced parents of Jess (Zooey Deschanel) in Fox’s “New Girl.”
(Ray Mickshaw / Fox)
The most notable of these, to my mind, is “New Girl,” in which Reiner appeared in 10 episodes threaded through five of the series’ seven seasons, as Bob Day, the father of Zooey Deschanel’s Jess. Jamie Lee Curtis, married to Guest in the real world, played his ex-wife, Joan, with Kaitlin Olson as his new, much younger partner, Ashley, who had been in high school with Jess. He’s positively delightful here, whether being overprotective of Deschanel or suffering her ministrations, dancing around Curtis, or fencing with Jake Johnson’s Nick. Improvisational rhythms characterize his performance, whether he’s sticking to the script or not. Most recently, he recurred in the fourth season of “The Bear,” which has also featured Curtis, mentoring sandwich genius Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson); their scenes feel very much like what taking a meeting with Reiner might be like.
Coincidentally, I have had Reiner in my ear over the past couple of weeks, listening to the audiobook version of “A Fine Line: Between Stupid and Clever,” which he narrates with contributions from McKean, Shearer and Guest. A story of friendship and creativity and ridiculousness, all around a wonderful thing that grew bigger over the years, Reiner’s happy reading throws this tragedy into sharper relief. I have a DVD on the way, though I don’t know when I’ll be up to watching it. I only know I will.
