European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström will be in Mexico on Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 May to assess progress with the country's authorities in the ongoing negotiations for updating the free trade agreement between the EU and Mexico, which entered into force in 2000.
Malmström will meet Mexico's Secretary for Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso and Minister of the Economy Ildefonso Guajardo, as well as representatives from trade organisations and businesses, civil society organisations and unions.
She will also take part in a conference organised by Mexico's National Autonomous University, in a seminar on EU affairs/Mexico, and will visit the Heineken factory in the north of Mexico as this well-known brewer is one of many European investors in the country.
In February, the EU and Mexico agreed to accelerate the pace of the negotiating process considerably (see EUROPE 11716).
The third round of negotiations, in Brussels on 3-7 April, enabled "good progress", with the two parties confirming their desire to conclude an agreement in principle by the end of 2017 (see EUROPE 11764).
The next round of negotiations will take place in Mexico at the end of June.
Publication of 16 new EU negotiation texts. On 9 December 2016, the European Commission published six EU negotiation texts covering access to public procurement, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) cooperation, relaxing the rules of origin, the protection of intellectual property rights (including geographical indications) and support for SMEs (see EUROPE 11686).
On Friday, the Commission published 16 other negotiation text proposals covering competition, subsidies, digital trade, dispute settlement, good regulatory practice, investment and services, rules of origin (three sections), specific arrangements on the management of preferential treatment, state-owned enterprises, technical barriers to trade, sustainable development, goods, trade defence (anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties and safeguard measures) and transparency.
The talks for updating the comprehensive EU-Mexico agreement, which has been in force since 2000, started in May 2016. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)