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4 July 2022

The undersigned civil society organisations, trade unions, human rights, animal welfare and environmental defenders, address this statement to policy makers in Mexico and the European Union (EU) to call on them not to ratify the “modernised” EU-Mexico Free Trade Agreement (EU-Mexico FTA). The text was negotiated behind closed doors, without debate or public consultation, and was finalised in April 2020, in the midst of one of the worst health, social and economic crises in the world, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU-Mexico FTA has been in force for twenty years and, far from fulfilling its promises, it has only generated serious social, economic and environmental harm, first and foremost for Mexico. The “modernised” agreement will only deepen those problems for the following reasons:

1. The agreement only protects foreign investors and jeopardises urgent changes in favour of climate, environment and people

The new agreement will have a new chapter on investment that aims to consolidate the use of international arbitration as a mechanism for resolving disputes between investors and states. Worryingly, the proposed Investment Court System (ICS) does not address the worst parts of the classic investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. This means that EU investors will be able to sue Mexico (and Mexican investors will also be able to sue EU member States) in a parallel justice system that prioritises their private interests, while environmental, social and general regulations take a back seat. In recent years, many of these lawsuits have been initiated by transnational investors to attack environmental measures and legislation. For example, in 2010-2013 the Spanish transnational Abengoa COFIDES sued Mexico after refusing to comply with environmental regulations, and obtained US$ 48 million in “compensation and lost profits”. With Mexico’s recent reforms on electricity and lithium mining, confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice, some European transnational corporations, including Iberdrola, have already threatened Mexico with ISDS claims. European countries have also received several such lawsuits over climate policies, such as that by German energy giant RWE against the Netherlands over plans to phase out coal by 2030. Signing the EU-Mexico FTA will lead to more such lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic, compromising national budgets and delaying necessary changes in favour of climate, environment and welfare of people and animals.

2. The agreement will allow European corporations to continue violating human rights in Mexico with impunity

European companies have a long history of violating human and environmental rights in Mexico with almost total impunity. This will be reinforced with the modernised EU-Mexico FTA, as it still fails to provide effective regulatory mechanisms. Some examples of this situation can be found in:

• tariff abuses and the violation of the right of access to electricity, in the context of monopoly control by Iberdrola, Naturgy, Acciona Energía, Fisterra;

• the violation of the right to water, and the arbitrary tariffs of Agsal-Suez (now Veolia) in Coahuila, Veracruz, Mexico City and Cancún. In the cases of the water bottling companies, Bonafont/Danone which are accountable for dispossession and devastation in the Choluteca Zone, where the resistance of the United Peoples is being criminalised and repressed.

The new treaty will also deepen the impunity of European corporations involved in the construction of large-scale projects with serious socio-environmental impacts on the territory, such as the Morelos Integral Project (PIM), the mega wind farms, the Interoceanic Corridor in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, or the Mayan Train, among others. In these cases, either the right to prior, free, informed and culturally appropriate consultation and consent or refusal has been directly violated, or the implementation, which does not adhere to international standards, is generating major divisions and conflicts between communities. The “modernised” EU-Mexico FTA does not include binding clauses that oblige these corporations to respect human rights, nor does it grant affected people effective mechanisms for access to justice, reparations and non-repetition. The human rights clause in the EU-Mexico Global Agreement (contained also in the “modernised EU-Mexico Global Agreement) has never been activated in the case of Mexico, despite proposals to this end by civil society organisations and in the European Parliament itself.

3. The agreement does not allow for progress on women’s rights and gender equality

The modernised EU-Mexico FTA reinforces patriarchal patterns entrenched in Mexican and European societies. The treaty does not provide for any mechanism to end discrimination against women and LGBTIQ people, nor does it include inclusive “gender” language. In this sense, the agreement does not talk about the need to modernise and question male and female roles and their different social tasks. Furthermore, the few explicit clauses on women that existed in the old version of the treaty have been removed, namely Art. 36 mentioning low-income women and Art. 37 on the role of women in productive processes. The promotion of equal opportunities is now only mentioned when referring to ILO-approved labour standards, without mechanisms that can be monitored. The different chapters of the treaty will affect the majority of women, especially the most marginalised ones, twofold. As workers, farmers or entrepreneurs, they risk being pushed out of the market by unequal competition from European corporations, especially in the dairy and meat industries. On the other hand, the extended public procurement chapter as well as the intellectual property protection chapter promote an economic model that undermines public services such as healthcare and access to affordable medicines. The predictable precariousness caused by fostering the extraction of raw materials of the economic model will only reinforce a patriarchal model that will increase the already countless victims of gender-based violence.

4. The agreement attacks peasant agriculture and erodes food sovereignty

Free trade agreements such as the EU-Mexico FTA are directly linked to the global agro-industrial system, which has a devastating impact on the right to independent agriculture and trade, the right to food and health, while being one of the main causes of the climate crisis. In this context, the results are: an attack on peasant agriculture by privatising seeds, spurring land grabbing and migration; incentivizing the model of monocultures based on export crops and low-wage and even slave labour and totally dependent on large amounts of GMOs, agrochemicals, energy and water. It is a model based on large-scale farms which have been at the origin of pandemics such as the A/H1N1 flu. Mexican and European agribusiness corporations will benefit from this model boosted by the EU-Mexico FTA. Currently, German transnational corporations as Bayer-Monsanto continue to import GMOs and agrochemicals, principal among them glyphosate, which is known to cause terrible diseases, among them cancer. On the other hand, the European Union is pressuring Mexico to sign the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants from 1991 (UPOV91). The mere acceptance of the entire UPOV system, in any of its versions, legitimises the privatisation of seeds and is a direct attack on independent peasant agriculture, i.e. on the pillar of food sovereignty. Farmers in Europe will also be affected by the increase in imports from Mexico.

5. The agreement impedes progress towards a more sustainable, decentralised and democratic energy system

The incorporation of a chapter on energy in the EU-Mexico FTA seeks to shield the privatisation of the sector, which was consolidated with the 2013 constitutional energy reform. This privatisation has had direct impacts on the population, such as higher electricity prices.  It has also consolidated the model of large-scale projects (both PPPs and private initiatives) for electricity generation, leading to the privatisation of communal lands, repression and aggression against affected populations, environmental impacts and corruption. Many European, and in particular Spanish, energy transnational corporations have interests in Mexico and are the main promoters of this treaty. Some of those include Ibedrola, Naturgy and Acciona (Spain), Enel (Italy) and Engie (France).

6. Public procurement and public services at risk

The “modernised” EU-Mexico FTA opens up important parts of Mexico´s public procurement market for the first time to European corporations. This means that private interests will be put ahead of public interests, based on the assumption that what is good for investors is good for society. Such an assumption ignores the impacts of corporate interests on the polarisation of income and wealth, environmental deterioration and social degradation, and the commodification of culture and history. It also affects business development itself, to the detriment of micro and small producers and to the benefit of large transnational capital, both European and Mexican. Finally, it damages bi-continental social and solidarity practices, to the benefit of capital, which has no allegiances. Development, both European and Mexican, must prioritise the legitimate conditions and aspirations of societies and not profit.

In conclusion, Mexico has become one of the world’s leading industrial paradises, that is, one of the most advanced laboratories for free trade and deregulation. The result has been unprecedented economic, social and environmental devastation, and a multiplicity of “sacrifice zones” or “environmental hellscapes”, which continue to claim thousands of lives every year.  It should not be forgotten that many of these companies are also those responsible for decades of privatisation and plunder of the public sector in Europe, jeopardising fundamental rights such as the right to housing, the right to food, the right to water and the right to energy.  

The EU-Mexico FTA is the triumph of European and Mexican transnational capital at the expense of the living conditions of the populations and environment on both sides of the Atlantic.

Based on the above, we are concerned that the context of the war in Europe is being used as an excuse to accelerate the ratification of the agreement, with serious implications for people in Mexico and the EU. For the future to be viable and sustainable, a trade policy model of the 21st century must put the well-being of communities, peoples and the environment first.

Therefore, European, Mexican, regional and international civil society organisations say NO to the EU-Mexico trade and investment agreement! And we demand our political leaders to oppose its ratification.

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