The European Union and Mexico will launch negotiations towards a new free-trade agreement later this year, as Europe seeks to tie its economy closer to North America following a deal with Canada and efforts to sign an accord with the United States, Reuters reported. Building on a pact with Mexico from 2000, the European Union hopes to create a transatlantic free-trade zone and help set the global rules of commerce before China does. Mexico is jumping ahead of Brazil, whose talks towards a similar deal with the European Union have stalled. “We are ready to commit to a highly ambitious deal,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told a forum in Brussels alongside Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo. “I will ask for a mandate to launch negotiations this fall,” she said. EU officials are expected to discuss the timing of talks in more detail at an EU-Latin American summit in Brussels on June 12, where Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is expected.
