India and the European Union (EU) aim to conclude the first tranche of a bilateral free trade agreement (ALE) by July this year, and intensified the pace of negotiations for it, a senior official said on Wednesday.
“We are looking for an early harvest. We are trying to do it as soon as possible … targeting (to finalize the early harvest) by July,” added the official.
A team of Indian officials on India-EU FTA led by chief negotiator Satya Srinivas has Left so that Brussels takes the thread of the dialogue from which he was awarded on Friday. Last week, India and the EU organized the 11th round of negotiations in New Delhi and in the following week, the Indian team must be in Brussels, highlighting the urgency and rapid progress of talks.
In addition to the key question of prices on the trade in goods, early harvest will include solutions to questions from non -tariff barriers, government supply, intellectual property rights, commercial appeal, rules of origin, as well as health and phytosanitary measures, said the source.
These problems have been identified as fundamental problems of the ALE by both sides. The full-fledged trade agreement has 23 chapters which include issues such as trade and sustainable development, transparency, good regulatory practices, subsidies and anti-fraud, among others.
The early harvesting agreement with the EU would then be converted into a full ALE after new negotiations. In February, the president of the European Commission (CE), Ursula von der Leyen, and a complete college of commissioners had visited India for detailed discussions on the entire spectrum of the relationship. During the meeting between the president of the EC, Narendra Modi, the end of year deadline to conclude that the ALE was set.
Due to the tight deadline and time to go to the common ground on non -essential issues, the two parties agreed to conclude the FTA in phases. Another thrust came from the change in the global trade environment after US President Donald Trump announced that pricing changes come from uncertainty worldwide.
To create cushions against the disturbances of the World Trade War, the countries accelerate the agreements. The conclusion of India-UK commercial talks at the beginning of the month also gives a push to the negotiators and the key issues involved in these two agreements are similar. In fact, in the previous attempt in India – the United Kingdom negotiated within the framework of the group of 27 members. Then Brexit occurred and the United Kingdom officially left the EU in 2020. A new start was made for the FTA with the two in 2022.
The key requested from EU India in its negotiations is zero prices on exports with high intensity of labor and better access to the group services of the group of 27 members.
The EU pushes India to reduce prices on cheese and skimmed powdered milk, which India is currently protecting high tasks to protect its domestic dairy industry. Indian officials say they wouldn’t want to provide concessions in dairy products in one of the FTAs.
European winegrowers are pushing better access to the Indian market, where imported wines are currently faced at a rate of 150%. European car manufacturers want India to reduce import duties to fully built vehicles (CBU) to 10-20%, down compared to current 70%.
Similar problems have been resolved by India and the United Kingdom in their Ale. India has agreed to reduce whiskey and Gin tasks to 75% by 150% before reducing 40% by the ten of the agreement, while car rates will drop from more than 100% to 10% under a quota. India has free access to 99% of its exports to the United Kingdom under the agreement.
The EU is the largest trading partner in India after the United States. In April-February of the last financial year, India exports to the EU amounted to $ 69 billion, while imports were $ 54.6 billion.
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