Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said on Friday 10 November that the EU was committed to end the negotiations on updating of the broad EU-Mexico agreement of 2000 by the end of this year.
The Commissioner, speaking after a meeting of EU trade ministers in Brussels on Friday, said there was a chance of concluding the agreement by the end of year.
“We are entering the end game, the result has to be balance,” said the action chair of the Council, Estonian entrepreneurship minister Urve Palo.
The fifth round of talks at the end of September made progress on textual proposals for the trade aspects of the agreement and revised offers of access to the market, which were exchanged in July (see EUROPE 11880).
The two sides maintain the objective of finalising an agreement in principle by the end of the year and a sixth round of talks will take place from 25 November to 1 December in Mexico and then from 18 to 22 December in Brussels.
A diplomatic source told us that the talks were going well, citing areas such as rules of origin, geographical indications, regulatory issues, opening of public procurement and protecting investment as the main areas to be settled.
On the latter issue, the EU wants to negotiate based on the special court system for investor-state dispute settlement from its agreements with Canada and Vietnam, but Mexico is not very keen, explained the source. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)