Pressing for strong IPR regime in FTA with India: EU tells WTO
Economic Times, India
Pressing for strong IPR regime in FTA with India: EU tells WTO
10 July 2011
PTI/NEW DELHI: The European Union has informed the WTO that it is pressing for inclusion of strong IPR regime in the free trade agreement under negotiations with India even as the Commerce Ministry has maintained that New Delhi will not yield to the EU on this issue.
The 27-nation bloc gave this input to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which has recently completed a Trade Policy Review of the EU.
According to the policy document, the EU has concluded FTAs with Central America, Colombia and Peru, which include detailed provisions on effective protection and enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
"A similar approach is being followed in on-going FTA negotiations with India, MERCOSUR, and Singapore and in non-preferential cooperation agreements with China and Russia," it said.
The India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) officially known as ’Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA)’ has been delayed as there are differences on contentious issues like IPR.
While the EU wants India to tighten its IPR rules beyond what New Delhi has agreed with WTO, Indian negotiators have been maintaining that they cannot sign any pact beyond the agreement with world trade body.
Both the sides are negotiating the pact since June 2007 and have already completed several rounds of talks without any breakthrough.
According to the policy, in the short term the European Commission is interested in covering both investment protection and liberalisation of trade in its ongoing FTA negotiations with India.
The negotiations for the agreement are expected to conclude by the end of this year.
The EU is India’s largest trading partner; bilateral trade in 2009-10 aggregated to USD 75 billion.
The EU had confiscated several consignments of Indian medicines in transit through European ports for other developing countries, alleging infringement of the IPR.
India had protested in the WTO against a European Commission regulation, which allows such a recourse if there is an allegation of an IPR infringement even in a transit country, an EU member.
