Italy’s silence on the Mercosur trade pact is deafening – and potentially decisive. Rome could become the kingmaker between supporters of the deal and countries seeking to block it.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plans to fly to Brazil on December 20 to sign off the agreement. France, facing farmer anger over fears of unfair competition from Latin America, opposes the deal and wants to postpone the EU member states vote scheduled this week to allow the signature.

The trade pact with Mercosur countries – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay – aims to create a free-trade area for 700 million people across the Atlantic. Its adoption requires a qualified majority of EU member states. A blocking minority of four countries representing 35% of the EU population could derail ratification.

By the numbers, Italy’s stance is pivotal. France, Hungary, Poland and Austria oppose the deal. Ireland and the Netherlands, despite past opposition, have not officially declared their position. Belgium will abstain.

That leaves Italy in the spotlight. A diplomat told Euronews the country is feeling expose but that may not be a bad position to be in if it plays its cards rights to get concessions.

Coldiretti remains firmly opposed to the agreement

Rome’s agriculture minister had previously demanded guarantees for farmers.

Since then, the Commission has proposed a safeguard to monitor potential EU market disruptions from Mercosur imports. The measure, backed by member states, will be voted on Tuesday by EU lawmakers at plenary session in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Italy’s largest farmers’ association, Coldiretti, remains firmly opposed.

“It’s going to take too long to activate this safeguard clause if the EU market is hit by a surge of Mercosur’s imports,” a Coldiretti representative told Euronews.

On the other side, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni faces a delicate balancing act between farmers and Confindustria, the industry lobby, while Italy remains the EU’s second-largest exporter to Mercosur countries.

This was also made clear by Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida a few days ago in Brussels. “Many industrial sectors and parts of the agricultural sector, such as the wine and cheese producers, would have a clear and tangible benefit [from the deal]. Others could be penalized,”he said.

This is why Italy has not taken a clear stance up to now. “Since 2024, we tried to protect everybody”, Lollobrigida argued, “while remaining ambiguous on the country’s position”.

Supporters of the deal are wooing Meloni, seeing her as the path to get the agreement done and open new markets amid global trade obstacles, including nationalist policies in the US and China.

“As long as the Commission president is preparing to go to Brazil to the Mercosur summit, we need to do what’s necessary for that to happen,” an EU senior diplomat from a pro-deal country said.

Yet uncertainty lingers. No one wants to schedule a vote that might fail, and Italy’s prolonged silence is rattling backers, sources told Euronews.

One diplomat familiar with the matter speaking to Euronews conceded “it’s hard, looks difficult”.

BERLIN/KYIV, Dec 14 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered to drop Ukraine’s aspirations to join the NATO military alliance as he held five hours of talks with U.S. envoys in Berlin on Sunday to end the war with Russia, with negotiations set to continue on Monday.

Sign up here.

Zelenskiy’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said the president would comment on the talks on Monday once they were completed. Officials, Lytvyn said, were considering the draft documents.

“They went on for more than five hours and ended for today with an agreement to resume tomorrow morning,” Lytvyn told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

Ahead of the talks, Zelenskiy offered to drop Ukraine’s goal to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees.

The move marks a major shift for Ukraine, which has fought to join NATO as a safeguard against Russian attacks and has such an aspiration included in its constitution. It also meets one of Russia’s war aims, although Kyiv has so far held firm against ceding territory to Moscow.

“Representatives held in-depth discussions regarding the 20-point plan for peace, economic agendas, and more. A lot of progress was made, and they will meet again tomorrow morning,” Witkoff said in a post on X.

The talks were hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who a source said had made brief remarks before leaving the two sides to negotiate. Other European leaders are also due in Germany for talks on Monday.

“From the very beginning, Ukraine’s desire was to join NATO, these are real security guarantees. Some partners from the U.S. and Europe did not support this direction,” Zelenskiy said in answer to questions from reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

“Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the U.S., Article 5-like guarantees for us from the U.S., and security guarantees from European colleagues, as well as other countries — Canada, Japan — are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion,” Zelenskiy said.

“And it is already a compromise on our part,” he said, adding the security guarantees should be legally binding.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demanded Ukraine officially renounce its NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from the about 10% of Donbas which Kyiv still controls. Moscow has also said Ukraine must be a neutral country and no NATO troops can be stationed in Ukraine.

Under pressure from Trump to sign a peace deal that initially backed Moscow’s demands, Zelenskiy accused Russia of dragging out the war through deadly bombings of cities and Ukraine’s power and water supplies.

A ceasefire along the current front lines would be a fair option, he added.

‘CRITICAL MOMENT’

Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said it was a “good sign” Trump had sent his envoys while fielding questions in an interview with the ZDF broadcaster on the suitability of Witkoff and Kushner, two businessmen, as negotiators.

“It’s certainly anything but an ideal setup for such negotiations. That much is clear. But as they say, you can only dance with the people on the dance floor,” Pistorius said.

On the issue of Ukraine’s offer to give up its NATO aspirations in exchange for security guarantees, Pistorius said Ukraine had bitter prior experience of relying on security assurances. Kyiv had in 1994 agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in exchange for territorial guarantees from the U.S., Russia and Britain.

“Therefore, it remains to be seen to what extent this statement Zelenskiy has now made will actually hold true, and what preconditions must be met,” Pistorius said.

“This concerns territorial issues, commitments from Russia and others,” he said, adding mere security guarantees, especially without significant U.S. involvement, “wouldn’t be worth much.”

Britain, France and Germany have been working to refine the U.S. proposals, which in a draft disclosed last month called for Kyiv to cede more territory, abandon its NATO ambitions and accept limits on its armed forces.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

The rescue operation to extract Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and transport her to Norway in time to accept her Nobel Peace Prize involved a complex series of complications and various components in land, sea and air.   

The mission, dubbed Operation Golden Dynamite, was spearheaded by Bryan Stern, a U.S. special forces veteran and founder of the Tampa-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, which specializes in high-risk rescue missions and evacuations, notably from conflict and disaster zones.

Getting her out of Venezuela, where she is considered a fugitive by President Nicolás Maduro, involved disguises, deception, navigating choppy seas and arranging flight options.

“She’s perceived by the Maduro regime the way we perceived Osama bin Laden, like that,” Stern told Fox News. “That level of manhunt if you will.”

US COVERT TEAM LEADER DESCRIBES ‘DANGEROUS’ MISSION TO RESCUE VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER

Machado has been hiding out in Venezuela since Maduro won a highly disputed election last year and had not been seen in public in months. 

Stern emphasized that the U.S. government was not involved in the operation. 

His team had been building up a presence in the Caribbean, Venezuela and the neighboring island of Aruba in preparation for operations in the South American region.

The biggest challenge, Stern said, was getting Machado out of the country despite her being a well-known figure there. In order to move her from her house to a “beach landing site,” his team reportedly did “all kinds of things designed to create a little bit of confusion.”

“Anything that we could have possibly think of that we thought could hide her face … was employed.” Stern said. “Anything we could think of, her digital signature, her physical signature. On top of that, we did some deception operations on the ground. We made some noise in some places designed to get people to think something was happening that wasn’t.”

VENEZUELAN DISSIDENT MACHADO CREDITS TRUMP FOR ADVANCING FREEDOM MOVEMENT, DEDICATES NOBEL TO HIM

The maritime operation started off rough, Stern recounted. Of the two boats deployed for the mission, the vessel that physically extracted Machado reportedly lost its GPS in the turbulent seas and suffered a mechanical hiccup that delayed the operation. The team was forced to continue into the “dead of night” in “pitch-black darkness,” navigating seas so violent that one of Stern’s seasoned operators reportedly vomited for nine hours straight.

Reaching the rendezvous point added another layer of difficulty. Stern’s boat and Machado’s vessel had to find each other in pitch-black seas while maintaining radio silence to avoid detection, ultimately locating one another by flashlight.

Stern said he had to remain cautious, fearing that the approaching boat could have been a trap set by Venezuelan forces. To confirm it was safe to proceed, his larger vessel circled Machado’s boat and shined lights on the crew. 

After Stern physically pulled Machado onto his boat, he then alerted the rest of the team that Machado was secured: “Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot.”

“Now we are on the run with Maria Corina Machado, the most wanted woman in the Western Hemisphere, on my boat,” he said.

“I have the most wanted person in the Western hemisphere that I’m trying to move around,” Stern said. “Personally, she’s a hero of mine. She’s a hero of mine. I’ve been tracking her for years.”

VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS COUNTRY AT ‘THRESHOLD OF FREEDOM’ AS NEW MANIFESTO ENVISIONS REGIME CHANGE

Once in international waters, the new concern was avoiding any appearance that they had kidnapped a Venezuelan, which would have given the government any justification to attack.

“They lie. They could have killed us for any reason,” Stern said. “We’re in the middle of the d— ocean and there’s no one around to see the truth … we are scared, we are nervous, we’re on the run and we floor it getting to the rendezvous.”

Stern ordered his boat captain to drive full throttle and not stop for anything, fearing pursuit by the Venezuelan regime.

“My boat guy, I told him I don’t care, I don’t care who comes,” Stern said. “You don’t stop. You do not stop. I don’t care, I don’t care who. You do not stop at all. Let them chase us if they have to. We have got to get to land.”

At some point during the escape, two F-18 fighter jets reportedly flew overhead. Stern described the moment as a potential complication, since they could not determine whether the jets were hostile or friendly, though he noted it was likely not part of a Navy coordination.

“There’s an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean throwing airplanes off every twenty minutes. I don’t know,” Stern said. “I can tell you that nobody in the Navy said, ‘Don’t worry, brother, we sent two F-18s to cover you.’”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The maritime team successfully delivered Machado to safety. Stern said his team had also prepared for a possible air extraction, but that plan was abandoned after a last-minute change on Machado’s side. Instead, the final flight to Norway was arranged by her personal network using a friend’s private jet, culminating in her safe arrival.

While Grey Bull Rescue has conducted operations in high-threat environments such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Haiti, Stern said the extraction of Machado was uniquely challenging, describing it as “overwhelmingly” the most complicated mission in the organization’s 800-mission history.