India, E.U. set to relaunch FTA talks, discuss post-pandemic recovery at summit
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On May 8, Prime Minister Modi will participate in a virtual summit with 27 European leaders, which will be hosted by Portugal.
Officials expect India and the European Union to make a “breakthrough” declaration on Saturday, resuming discussions on a comprehensive trade and investment treaty.
The announcement will come as Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends a virtual conference with 27 European leaders hosted by Portugal on May 8, which will resume talks on the Bilateral Trade and Investment Pact (BTIA), or free trade agreement, which have been stalled since 2013. The two sides will also announce agreements on improving infrastructure and connectivity, climate change and the green transition, pandemic response and recovery, and a joint framework on artificial intelligence during the conference.
The authorities mentioned PM Modi’s phone chat with EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, who has put the EU’s pandemic help to India into action, including $100 million in supplies sent under the EU’s civil protection framework.
The trading statement would come after a high-level meeting in February between Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, in which the two sides attempted to restart FTA talks that had stalled in 2015 when PM Modi visited Brussels. In response to a question from The Hindu, a European Union official who did not want to be identified stated the talks would begin where they left off in 2013.
Human rights issues, particularly collaboration at the UN Security Council, are expected to be discussed in the leaders’ joint statement. In April, the government agreed to hold a human rights dialogue with the EU, which it had not done in eight years, marking a significant shift after a year in which the EU issued several statements on Kashmir, the CAA, the Delhi riots, farmer protests, and the government’s actions against NGOs, journalists, and civil society organisations.
The leaders will discuss “COVID-19 pandemic and healthcare cooperation; growth and regional and global matters of mutual interest,” according to the Ministry of External Affairs, which also noted that the E.U. has only adopted the India-EU leaders meeting format for the US President so far.
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