EU-Mexico strategic partnership

The European Parliament adopted by 463 votes to 20, with 52 abstentions, a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on an EU-Mexico Strategic Partnership.

The resolution recalls that Mexico and the EU share a set of fundamental values, common principles and historical and cultural links. Mexico is increasingly consolidating its political weight on the international stage. The country has a population of over 100 million with a marked preponderance of youth given that 45% of Mexicans are under 20 years of age, and occupies an important geostrategic position as a bridge both between North and South America and between the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Mexico has become the world's tenth-largest economy, a member of the G20 and of the G5 (Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Mexico), and is, furthermore, the only Latin American member of the OECD. Moreover, multilateralism is one of the basic principles which Mexico and the EU have undertaken to promote in the international sphere.

The Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Mexico - the Global Agreement - signed on 8 December 1997 has three pillars: political dialogue, the gradual creation of a free-trade area, and cooperation. Since that agreement came into force in 2000, relations between the two sides have been marked by deepening and consolidation, both politically and in the trade and cooperation fields.

The Parliament hopes that a future Strategic Partnership will mark a qualitative leap in EU-Mexico relations, both multilaterally in terms of issues of world importance and that it will give a new impetus to the EU-Mexico Global Agreement in its various aspects – political (including human rights), security, anti-drugs trafficking, environmental, cooperation (technical and cultural) and socio-economic.

MEPs makes the following recommendations, among others, in relation to the Strategic Partnership:

• institutionalising annual EU-Mexico summits, as is already the case for those with the USA, Russia, China and Brazil;
• a trade chapter to be based on like-for-like treatment, solidarity, dialogue and respect for the specific characteristics of Mexico and of the EU;
• support for the Mexican Government and President Calderón in their vital work of cleaning up certain institutions of the State and for the fight against corruption;
• support for the Mexican government in its contributions to the work of the UN and in its fight against drug trafficking, international terrorism and organised crime;
• fight feminicide in both regions, on a basis of dialogue, cooperation and the exchange of best practices;
• closer coordination of positions on crisis situations and issues of world importance, on the basis of shared interests and concerns;
• clear guidelines on how best to ensure close cooperation with a view to promoting effective multilateralism, while also tackling, in the framework of international law, common threats to peace and security such as trafficking in drugs and arms, organised crime, terrorism and human trafficking;
• an opportunity to debate how to make the human rights and democracy clause function more effectively and to evaluate compliance with it;
• the creation of a Mexico-EU Civil Society Forum, the recommendations of which must be taken into account wherever possible;
• fresh impetus to the bilateral relationship as well as the expansion and improvement of cooperation programmes such as the Integral Support Programme for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (PIAPYME);

The Parliament recommends that Mexico should become a permanent member of the new financial and economic international architecture of the G20. Moreover, it urges that more coherent efforts be made to promote scientific and technological transfer, with a view to boosting real cooperation in fighting climate change and improving environmental protection.

MEPs wish to see further progress in developing a comprehensive and structured dialogue on migration, both legal and illegal, and call on the Joint Council to consider the timeliness of establishing, inter alia, an agreement on an immigration policy between the two parties.

Lastly, they call for the reaffirmation of the commitments for attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and for renewed awareness of the need for close cooperation in the areas of social cohesion, gender equality, climate change, sustainable development, the fight against international terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime, food security, and the fight against poverty.