Despite their wishes, the EU and Mexico did not manage to conclude their negotiations this week on the modernisation of the comprehensive EU-Mexico agreement of 2000. However, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström announced on Thursday 21 December that they expect to reach a deal “at the beginning of 2018”.
Malmström said: “We have made a lot of progress, we are very close to a deal but we are not really there yet. It is in sight but we do need additional work beginning of next year”.
During his visit to Brussels in an attempt to seal a political agreement, Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexican Minister for the Economy, stated: “There are very few issues are pending”.
The discussions are still stalling on the agricultural chapter, particularly on dairy products, a very sensitive issue for the EU, and on opening up Mexican public procurement markets.
On the question of the protection of geographical indications (GIs), Malmström said that the two parties still had to “find solutions on some” of the 400 GIs the EU would like to protect on the Mexican market. Guajardo emphasised that, “in Mexico we have a very strong commitment to protection denominations of origin. Mexican tequila is a very good example”. Malmström added: “We have different protection systems but we are making compromises”.
Discussions are also continuing on investment protection and the dispute settlement mechanism, in this area.
Mexico is still considering the EU proposal of an investment court system (ICS) for arbitration in investment disputes, which forms part of the agreements concluded by the EU with Canada, Singapore and Vietnam and is being promoted in its agreement with Japan, to replace the private arbitration courts like the Investor State Dispute System (ISDS).
Malmström stated: “We have made a lot of progress in explaining and clarifying things in our ICS proposal”.
Guajardo affirmed: “When you discuss the new investment model that the EU has been crafting, when you analyse that even today’s investment agreements in old trade agreements are in discussion, you have to be very careful how you adapt to that model and you have to review the equivalence of the old model with the new model, in all regards. We hope to finally work things out in order to make a very clear decision. We are committed to the concept, we are in together for that concept but we have to craft the ideas that will work for both parties”.
He added: “For Mexico, there is something very attractive in trying to work with the EU on this proposal, because Mexico has investment protection agreements with only 16 EU countries and those agreements are of different quality. Therefore, trying to get a one level uniform prescription for disputes, it will be a very effective way to really do now a full coverage. And we have now companies that are very active in some of the EU states in Eastern Europe and they require this new coverage of investment protection”.
It was in May 2016 that the EU and Mexico began talks to modernise their free-trade agreement concluded in 1997and implemented since 2000, to include new subjects (environmental protection, employment rights, intellectual property and investment) and to boost trade between the two. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)