June 22, 2015 Fresh negotiations between Mexico and the European Union have been launched to renew and modernize a trade pact both sides agreed to in 2000.
The hope for the EU is to add Mexico City to an emerging transatlantic free-trade zone. Negotiations could start at the end of the year and Mexico’ President Enrique Pena Nieto had this to say about the intending marriage, after an EU-Mexico summit.
“It will be the seventh summit that we shared. It’s particularly relevant in the light of the agreement we took to initiate the necessary steps to upgrade our general agreement which as we heard is already 15 years old,” As with the EU’s pact with Canada and its plans for a deal with the United States, a new accord with Mexico would further open up markets in services and allow businesses to bid for public tenders in each others’ countries.”
“With these two countries, the United States and Canada, being two of our major strategic and business partners, I think it would be an omission not to modernize the global agreement between Mexico and the European Union, which enables us to be competitive and above all to be aligned the same way our two North American partners are with the European Union. And Mexico needs to be aligned and needs to be in accordance with the agreement, with the modernized version of the agreement with the European Union,”
A more comprehensive deal with the European Union would enable Mexico join Colombia and Peru in having modern trade pacts with the EU and the US.
European Council President Donald Tusk also spoke with press.
“This modernized agreement will be a stronger foundation for taking our partnership forward because it will be far more ambitious and comprehensive. Our vision for this relationship is for more political cooperation and more trade,”