EU-India free trade agreement [International Agreements in Progress]

Written by Angelos Delivorias. Graphics: Györgyi Mácsai.

India was among the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community in 1962. Following the EU-India 1994 Cooperation Agreement, the parties built a multi-tiered institutional architecture of cooperation, and eventually upgraded their relationship to a ‘Strategic Partnership’ in 2004. During the same period, trade between the two partners grew significantly, reaching €115.4 billion in 2022. As a result, the parties began negotiations on a broad-based bilateral trade and investment agreement in 2007. However, after 15 rounds of negotiations, talks between the parties stalled in 2013, due to diverging ambitions between the counterparts. On 8 May 2021, the EU and Indian leaders agreed to resume negotiations for a ‘balanced, ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial’ trade agreement, and to launch separate negotiations on an investment protection agreement and an agreement on geographical indications. The Commission and India aim to finalise the negotiations before the Indian elections in 2024. In addition, they decided in April 2022 to launch an EU-India Trade and Technology Council.

In its 5 July 2022 resolution on EU-India future trade and investment cooperation, Parliament encouraged the negotiators to achieve a comprehensive and mutually beneficial free trade agreement, giving priority to areas conducive to sustainable growth and addressing inequalities and the digital and green just transitions. They invited the Commission to ensure that the core principles of the ILO are applied in the future trade agreement and that the agreement is in line with the European Green Deal, the ‘farm to fork’ strategy and COP26. Lastly, they welcomed the willingness to negotiate an independent investment protection agreement, and urged negotiators to agree on the creation of a multilateral investment court and a specific EU-India investment court.

Read the complete briefing on ‘EU-India free trade agreement‘ on the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.