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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2008 
PRI: Anti-Trust Law Not Energy Dealbreaker
 Catherine Bremer - Reuters
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Mexico City - A Mexican opposition party whose support is key to a planned overhaul of the struggling energy sector said on Tuesday it wants the government to break monopolies but would not make that a strict condition for its backing of the energy proposal.
President Felipe Calderon wants to allow more private investment in parts of Mexico's state-run energy sector, but his conservative party lacks a majority in Congress.
The opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has said the energy legislation should be part of a wider deal to increase economic competitiveness by moving against big Mexican companies seen as monopolies.
But the head of the Senate energy commission, a senior PRI member, told Reuters that the anti-monopoly issue was not necessarily a deal breaker.
"It is not a condition but it seems this is a good opportunity for the country to move ahead in competitiveness," said Francisco Labastida of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The party, the third-biggest in Congress, wants any energy law to be flanked by parallel laws to combat poverty and boost economic competitiveness.
Labastida said he believed it was possible to achieve an anti-monopolies law at the same time as energy reform before the upcoming congressional session finishes at the end of April.
However it is not crucial to meet that time frame, he said.
"Whether or not we succeed is much more important than the date," he told Reuters at an engineering event.
Allowing more private investment in Mexican oil is a political hot potato. State control has been cherished by Mexicans since the PRI-run government threw out foreign oil companies in 1938.
Yet, in a year in office Calderon already has persuaded the divided Congress to agree to fiscal and pension reforms.
(Editing by David Gregorio) |
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