Where the math is defensible.
Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.
EU Mercosur 2026: The Political Endgame After Montevideo
The December 2024 political agreement broke a 25 year logjam. The 2026 ratification fight will be won or lost on bifurcation, beef quotas, and whether Paris can convince Rome and Warsaw to vote down a deal that Berlin, Madrid, and Brasilia all want.
The EU Mercosur agreement, initialled at the Montevideo summit on 6 December 2024, reopened a dossier first signed in 1999 and frozen after the 2019 political accord collapsed. The 2026 ratification path now runs through a deliberate legal bifurcation: the Trade Pillar travels under Article 207 TFEU as an EU only competence, requiring qua...
Paraguay Under Pena: Itaipu Renewal, Investment Grade, and the Mercosur Arbitrage
Santiago Pena's Colorado government is converting a low tax, low debt, hydropower surplus economy into a credible investment grade story. The 2024 Itaipu Anexo C settlement at 19.28 dollars per kilowatt locked in a five year transition, Moody's upgraded sovereign debt to Baa3 in March 2024, and beef plus soy exports lifted GDP by 4.7 percent. The remaining bet is whether Pena can hold the Mercosur EU FTA window open, sustain Taiwan diplomatic ties against PRC pressure, and keep the Cartes faction inside the rule of law perimeter the United States redrew when OFAC lifted Section 7031c sanctions on December 26, 2024.
Santiago Pena Palacios was inaugurated on August 15, 2023, after winning the April 30, 2023 election with 42.74 percent against Efrain Alegre's 27.49 percent, returning the Asociacion Nacional Republicana to the presidency with a Senate and Chamber majority anchored by the Honor Colorado faction of former president Horacio Cartes. The Ban...