01/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - Free trade - Malmstrom hopes for contacts to resume in 2016. “India is an important player to us. The free-trade agreement with India would be a very good thing. For a while now, we have seen that India has not been very motivated to resume talks. But recently, there have been positive signals and we are going to see whether we can ensure that our negotiators-in-chief meet next year to take stock and decide on the next steps”, commented the Commission of the Trade, Cecilia Malmstrom, when questioned by EUROPE on the sidelines of the meeting of the European trade ministers on 27 November. The EU and India tried in vain, in 2015, to relaunch the free-trade negotiation process, on ice since spring 2013 (see EUROPE 11365). In its new strategy published in October, the Commission states that it “remains ready to resume the negotiations for a comprehensive and ambitious free-trade agreement”. (EH)