The first meeting of the EU/India Trade and Technology Council was held in Brussels on Tuesday 16 May. Participants were optimistic about the future work of the platform, despite the differences between the EU and New Delhi on many trade-related issues.
The EU was represented by European Commissioners Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis, and India by Ministers Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (External Affairs), Piyush Goyal (Trade) and Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Technology). The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, and EU Commissioner Thierry Breton also joined the meeting.
At the end of the meeting, both parties issued a joint statement. This was not published at the time of going to press, but it should be similar to the one we detailed on Monday 15 May (see EUROPE 13182/14).
The TTC should be “a key coordination platform to address challenges related to trade, trust technologies and security, to promote a human-centric approach to digital transformation and to strengthen bilateral relations in these areas”, the statement said.
The strategic nature of the TTC is also recalled in the text. The EU and India are not aligned on all fronts and have had disputes at the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example. Negotiations on trade, investment protection and geographical indications agreements are expected to take some time to reach a mutually satisfactory outcome.
The issue of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is one of the issues that divide the EU and India. It was discussed at the meeting on 16 May and it was agreed that the TTC was the right platform to address the issue. “Between friends, it is always good to talk. We are engaged with the EU and I am sure that the intention is not to create a barrier to trade, but rather to be part of the collective effort to leave a better planet behind. We have a lot of time to talk about it”, Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal told the press.
Moreover, the participants in the TTC put aside difficult issues and focus on possible ways of cooperation, especially in the field of technology. The EU is keen to diversify its partners, for example in the semiconductor value chains. For example, the Commissioners and Ministers of both sides state that they want to conclude a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on semiconductors by September 2023. The aim will be to coordinate their respective policies in this sector.
Another important aspect of the relationship is that both partners want to promote the exchange of talent between India and the EU. “It is clear that the question of talents, skills and expertise must be part of the core of our cooperation. We see this as one of the hard barriers for our strategies to be fulfilled. You can have all the funding and raw materials you want, but if you don’t have the people, nothing will happen”, insisted Margrethe Vestager at the opening of the TTC meeting.
“We must now show ambition and political will to deliver positive results without delay”, concluded EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.
See the joint statement : https://aeur.eu/f/6ww (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)