On October 30, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum made a very clear anti-neoliberal gesture in her morning press conference: the de-privatization of two emblematic Mexican energy companies. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will now be fully controlled by the federal government. The government also signed a decree for the Mexican State to regain full rights over passenger railroads.
This was achieved through a constitutional reform approved by Congress, in which MORENA has a majority. Although Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Sheinbaum’s predecessor) sent the proposal several weeks ago, the current president takes the most important credit for having concluded the process.
In 2013, the neoliberal government of Enrique Peña Nieto undertook a reform to turn Pemex and CFE into “state-owned productive companies”, a euphemism that implies that such companies cease to be public and become private.
In this regard, Sheinbaum told the press “With the signing of the decree we return to Pemex and CFE their public character. The Mexican State also retakes the right over the railroads for passenger transportation.” In addition, the President pledged that the companies “Will be operated efficiently and will provide services, fuel, and electricity at affordable prices for everyone.”
For her part, Mexico’s Secretary of Energy, Luz Elena González, said that “the legislative process for the reform of strategic areas and companies of the Mexican State has concluded, and today it is a constitutional reform that fills us with great pride”. For this, articles 25, 27, and 28 of the Constitution had to be reformed, through which the operation of such companies will no longer be based only on possible profits, but on the possibility of offering the Mexican people an accessible and quality service: “these companies are given prevalence to guarantee continuity, security and accessibility to all Mexicans to a strategic resource. With the previous reform, for example, CFE could not take electric energy to remote towns where it was not profitable, here we recover the essence that it is for the nation, and on the other hand, it allows us to retake the planning capacity that the Mexican State had and that should never have been lost,” said González.
In addition, Sheinbaum celebrated the fact that the Mexican State will once again have jurisdiction over passenger railways, which will allow it to operate trains on all railways and generate more employment: “We will generate 600,000 jobs that we will generate with the trains…Public works generate employment and this boosts private investment,” said the President of Mexico.
With these measures, the new Mexican government seems to declare to the world the tone of its economic policy: a greater presence of the State in the economy, greater employment generation from the State, and strong opposition to the neoliberal logic that dominates a good part of the Mexican market.