- Negotiations
The European Union and India launched negotiations on a bilateral free trade and investment agreement in June 2007. However, between the governments, a number of controversies have been plaguing the talks. Delhi wants Brussels to relax its stringent food safety criteria which penalise Indian farm and fishery exports and to make it easier for Indian professionals to work in the EU. Europe is primarily out to win major openings of India’s services sector and broad liberalisation of foreign investment, while India does not want to discuss allowing European firms to compete in India’s government procurement market.
Indian social movements, including fisherfolk and labour unions, people living with HIV/AIDS and other health activists have been mobilizing against the FTA. International actions and campaigns have particularly targeted the proposed intellectual property provisions of the agreement, and the impact of the FTA on access to medicines.
last update: May 2012
Photo: MSF
12-Nov-2009
Statement from the 9th EU-India Business Summit organised by the
Confederation of Indian Industry, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry, The Confederation of Swedish Enterprises and BUSINESSEUROPE on 6 November 2009
9-Nov-2009
The Guardian
The EU is pushing an unsavoury free trade deal that would force India to give up control of its banking sector and drugs industry
8-Nov-2009
The fate of the India-EU trade and investment agreement—which seeks to further open up bilateral markets for goods, investments
and services—may hang in balance as India and the EU lock horns over including labour standards in the pact.
31-Oct-2009
Economic Times
Sources say that the two sides are nowhere close to an agreement.
27-Oct-2009
Europolitics
Following the conclusion of an FTA with South Korea, the European Commission’s Chief Negotiator, Ignacio Garcia Bercero, has stepped up efforts to reinvigorate the trade negotiations with India. However, two key contentious issues are standing in the way of further progress, namely tariff liberalisation and public procurement.
19-Oct-2009
New Europe
Two years after the European Union and India began negotiating a Free Trade Agreement that has enemies in both places, the talks are continuing with the hope of concluding by the end of the year, but not in time for the EU-India Summit in New Delhi on Nov. 6.
11-Sep-2009
The Hindu
“Real negotiations between the two sides have not started yet,” says the head of the delegation of the European Commission in India
11-Sep-2009
Business Standard
Ahead of the next round of talks on a bilateral trade treaty with India, the European Union today said it was keen that the comprehensive pact included government procurement agreement, which India has resisted so far.
6-Sep-2009
The European Union on Friday said it would prefer to resolve two commercial disputes with India without engaging in a legal battle at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The first dispute involves seizure of Indian generic drugs in transit at some EU-based ports, including Amsterdam, which were bound for certain third world countries, on the grounds of patents infringement.
8-Jul-2009
Business Standard
Even the most optimistic amongst those involved in the process admit the talks to be in a deadlock that neither side has the political will to break.
