Committee on International Trade Extraordinary meeting

Name: Committee on International Trade Extraordinary meeting
Uploaded: 2026-07-06T17:00:00+00:00
Duration: 937 s

01:54 - 06:11

Speaker 1

So, welcome dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. We have a short extraordinary meeting of today and there is a short agenda. Any objections to the agenda? No, so the agenda is adopted. We have chair's announcement that this is of course webstreamed and welcome from Lüneburg to Ljubljana, from Tallinn to Thessaloniki and perhaps also to Mexico City.

Who knows who will look to this decision and perhaps even from the United States. One week ago, the USPR mentioned quite clearly that they will not renew the USMCA anymore and perhaps they will look what we are doing now with Mexico. Good. The adoption of the minutes will be in the draft minutes of the meeting of the 2nd of June are here in will be adopted until the end of the meeting. Nobody is objecting.

And then we are coming to the main point of today, the conclusion of the interim agreement on trade between the EU and Mexico.

And as you know, this is more or less 90% of the whole exercise of the modernization of the partnership in the trade agreement. And because of the legal situation, we will vote on the trade agreement as an interim report because it is an EU-only exercise and with a vote we will put it finally into force. And this is a big difference compared to the CETA agreement and other trade agreements. So, then of course you need your voting card. And we will make a test vote.

And the question is, are you happy that the holidays are coming soon? The vote is open. So, one member didn't vote. Okay, now it's full and it is clearly a majority, but of course also some members wanted to work here a little more. So, yeah, but that's a democratic choice.

I guess then we can switch to the vote on the agreement. And I, yeah, on amendment one. Who is in favor of the amendment one? And who is against? And who abstain?

So, it's clearly rejected. And now we come to the vote on the agreement as such, on the interim agreement, and it's electronically and the vote is open. And the vote, no, what's happened now? Yeah, there were 40 members and perhaps one put their card away.

06:11 - 06:44

Speaker 2

Me, yes, because it was already counted the vote. It was not. No, not really. So, put it again. I was faster than you, but it was not.

Wait, wait, wait. Now I have to open it back again. And we take it into account. I don't know what we can do.

06:44 - 07:16

Speaker 1

Okay, good. So, there is another vote in favor and we put it in the minutes of today. So, this means we have 40 votes, 30 votes in favor, 8 votes against, and 2 abstention. So, congratulations to the rapporteur and congratulations for I guess this good result for the relation with Mexico. Thanks a lot.

07:16 - 09:12

Manon Aubry

Excuse me, I've been asking for the floor according to rule 56.4. Please, we can have a minority opinion.

So on behalf of our Left group in the European Parliament, I would like to express a minority opinion because this deal between the European Union and Mexico is a sort of corporate power grab. It gives corporations the right to sue states before international courts, so it's creating another parallel judicial system in which corporations can sue governments if they adopt progressive measures without being enforceable rights to workers, communities or the environment. And I think this is a strong contradiction with Europe's exit from the Energy Charter Treaty to protect itself from such lawsuits. I'm quite surprised that our group, our Left group, is the only one to actually oppose that deal because the agreement also runs counter to efforts to reindustrialize Europe. There's been already examples of Golf being made now in Mexico, Volkswagen being delocalizing part of their industry in Mexico.

And I think it's about consistency to protect our workers and our industries. It also significantly restricts government's policy space while promoting a harmful extractivist model and incentivize agri-food export instead of supporting agricultural sovereignty. All in all, I think the agreement will not deliver the benefits it claims. More than 95% of the trade in goods has already been tariff-free for over a decade, and the Commission's own evaluation of the existing agreement found that nearly after 20 years, its economic impact was marginal, even by the narrow measures of GDP. So our group obviously supports stronger relationship with Mexico, but one that is not based on this endless free trade.

Thank you.

09:12 - 09:25

Bernd Lange

Thanks a lot. You sent it us in a written form and we put it in the minutes of the vote. Thanks a lot. Nothing on any other business? Karin?

No. Okay. Thanks a lot. The meeting is closed.