Brussels, 31/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The 13th EU-India summit, in Brussels on Wednesday 30 March, did not enact the resumption of the laborious negotiations for a free-trade agreement between the two partners, but the leaders of both sides expressed the desire to work towards resuming the process. European and Indian leaders are now waiting for a commitment at ministerial level to enact this relaunch at their next meeting, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hangzhou (China) in early September.
“The ambition to relaunch the actual negotiations process was not fulfilled yet there was a clear will by both sides at the highest level that we will relaunch these negotiations and that the period of silence and stalemate is over”, a senior European official summed up the situation on Thursday 31 March, the day after a summit which did not conclude with a press conference.
The two sides agreed that “there needs to be now a ministerial level engagement on this which should allow leaders to then hopefully take that step of relaunching these negotiations the next time they meet in the margin of the G20 in September”, our source added. “There is a clear will of providing more flexibility on both sides to make this possible. That perhaps was never expressed as clearly before as it was now”.
In their joint statement, the leaders of the EU -President of the European Council Donald Tusk and the President of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker - and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the fact that both sides have “re-engaged” (at government level) in discussions to examine ways of resuming the free-trade negotiations.
In 2015 and early 2016 (see EUROPE 11466), the EU and India attempted in vain to resume the negotiation process for a bilateral trade and investment agreement (BTIA), which was launched in 2007, but shelved after 16 sessions of talks at technical level (the last of these in May 2013), ahead of the general elections in India in spring 2014 which brought Modi to power. At the time, the two sides were not able to overcome their differences on a number of key chapters (see EUROPE 10931).
The main stumbling blocks remain unchanged: the EU wants India to adopt a more accommodating position towards its ambitions on tariff matters (in the automotive and wines & spirits sectors), access to public procurement contracts and the protection of geographical indications. The EU also hopes to tighten up the Indian intellectual property regime, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector.
For its part, India wants improved access to the European market for its service providers. It also wants the EU to grant it data protection country status, which would authorise its IT industry to process sensitive data in India on healthcare sector patients, for example. New Delhi is also calling for a relaxation and harmonisation of the visa regimes to allow its qualified workers, particularly its IT professionals, to move freely through the EU. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)