Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 15 February 2018
185. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the status of trade discussions between the European Union and Mexico and potential growth and jobs opportunities for Ireland; and if she will report on the likely inclusion of a multilateral investment court system as part of the final agreement. [7993/18]
View answerIn 1997, Mexico was the first Latin American country to conclude an Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement with the EU. Mexico has been a strategic partner of the EU since 2008.
The EU and Mexico met in Brussels on the 13th and 14th June 2016 to start the negotiation process for the modernisation of the EU-Mexico Global Agreement. The negotiations aim to broaden the scope of the Global Agreement and adjust it to the new political and economic global challenges. Modernisation includes regulatory cooperation, more trade in agriculture and food, common sanitary and phytosanitary standards (protection of human, animal or plant life or health from certain risks), sustainable development and rules of origin.
Ireland supports the modernisation of the EU-Mexico Global Agreement. The main benefits for Ireland in a modernised agreement with Mexico would include the opening up of public procurement markets to Irish businesses and the removal of technical barriers to trade to reduce the costs of entry to the Mexican market. It will further remove industrial tariffs and important agricultural tariffs. This will be important for Ireland’s important Agri-food sector especially for dairy products where Ireland is a significant exporter to Mexico of powdered milk and milk derivatives but there are currently significant barriers both to increasing powdered milk exports and to commencing exports of fresh dairy produce.
The current round of negotiations between the EU and Mexico to modernize the trade pillar of the Global Agreement is taking place this week in Mexico City. Both parties are committed to reaching a political agreement on the deal as soon as possible. The parties have made important progress to this end but there is still further work on a number of issues related to market access and rules including opening each other’s market access to food and drink, geographical indicators (GI’s) and access to public procurement. The Parties have reached agreement on the text of a number of chapters including trade in goods, technical barriers to trade, good regulatory practices, transparency, energy and raw materials, trade and sustainable development and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) matters and customs and trade facilitation.
In these negotiations, the EU and Mexico have had extensive discussions towards finding common ground on a reformed approach to investment dispute resolution, including on concepts and ideas. The EU and Mexico are now engaging in further technical work on the legal text in this regard. These discussions are still ongoing and so the final text of the Investment Chapter has yet to be concluded.
A report of the seventh round is available on the Commission’s website at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2018/january/tradoc_156557.pdf. As part of its commitment to more transparent trade policy, the EU negotiating textual proposals are available on its website at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1694
