On Monday 9 October, a source close to the issue at the European Commission said that the talks to update the comprehensive EU-Mexico agreement are stumbling on key subjects and that the negotiators are already afraid that the general elections in Mexico in summer 2018 might complicate the continuation of the process if the parties do not manage to conclude an agreement in principle by the end of 2017.
In 2015, the EU and Mexico decided to review the outline of their comprehensive agreement dating back to 2000 and to integrate new subjects (including protection of the environment, labour rights, intellectual property and investments).
Negotiations were launched in May 2016. The fifth round of talks, in Brussels on 25-29 September, enabled "good progress" in all areas of the trade section of the comprehensive agreement, and the two parties maintained their objective of concluding an agreement in principle by the end of 2017. A sixth round of talks will take place in Mexico from 25 November to 1 December.
But the discussions are stumbling on market access for certain products and on the opening up of public procurement, EUROPE was told on Monday. Offers on market access for goods, services and public procurement were exchanged in July.
As regards tariff liberalisation, the EU would like increased opening of agricultural markets, with offensive interests in dairy products and pork. Alongside this, it would like to develop the SPS arrangements better and to obtain recognition and protection on Mexican territory for 300 of its geographical indications (GIs)
With regard to public procurement, the EU wants an GPA+ agreement – in other words, concessions going further than the WTO agreement on public procurement (GPA), which Mexico has not yet joined, with increased opening at federal level and below.
Discussions are also stumbling in the pillar on trade rules. The EU especially wants to include in the updated agreement a chapter on sustainable development, providing for the signature and implementation of ILO conventions on labour rights, as well as a full chapter on access to energy and raw materials.
On the latter point, the two parties "particularly disagree" on the issue of lifting the restrictions imposed by Mexico on its energy exports.
Differences also exist on the chapter on investment protection and the settlement of disputes between investors and states – with Mexico not currently seeming very enthusiastic about the EU's proposal for the Investment Court System (ICS) that is provided for in the EU-Canada and EU-Vietnam free trade agreements.
General elections will be held in Mexico on 1 July 2018 to elect a successor to the country's current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, and to renew the Mexican chamber of deputies and senate.
Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) cannot stand for a second mandate and is not popular due to repeated scandals of corruption and its administration's bad economic results. It will have to face the new Left party, the Morena (the National Regeneration Movement), of the candidate who lost the presidential elections in 2006 and 2012, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, and the conservative party PAN (National Action Party). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)