NEW DELHI: No autonomous nation can have a free trade agreement with the European Union unless the latter stops superimposing its non-traditional agenda in bilateral trade negotiations, said on Friday that the Minister of India in Commerce, Piyush Goyal, argued on Friday that New Delhi would sign no FTA with the EU if it insists on issues such as tax regulations and carbon deficiency pact.
Answering a specific question about the India-UE FTA negotiation calendar at the 9th summit of world technology co-organized by Carnegie India and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Goyal said: “My feeling is, we will be able to finish most of the discussions in a very friendly manner.”
“There will be two areas on which the European Union will have to rethink,” he warned. “One is these non-commercial problems that they seek to superimpose on the agenda. Unless they remove this from their system, and the European Commission will have to think about it … It will be (will be) very difficult to obtain a trade agreement with anyone, whether,” he said.
“Any self-respecting country cannot register for the commitments that are irrational, beyond the field of commerce,” he said, explaining that the EU cannot impose commitments without exchange on India when it is not the real culprit in questions related to climate change. When “the rest of the world was responsible for the problem in the first place”, the EU must not seek to blame “our head as if it was our responsibility to resolve,” he said frankly.
Speaking of the second issue, Goyal said: “Europe today is in crisis, in my humble opinion, due to the severity of the non -tariff obstacles that Europe has created. The United States has spoken of it. Unless Europe recognize the path they follow … I see serious difficulties for Europe in order to be able to trade with a country, forget India. ”
“And, I am in fact a man worried about the very future of the European Union and their businesses, given the kind of … difficult non-tariff obstacles they have created, both for their own businesses and for the rest of the world,” he added.
India and the EU resumed the ALE negotiations in June 2022 after a difference of nine years. Since then, they have finished nine negotiation rooms and resumed the 10th round after the elections in Europe. According to officials, the EU body on the inclusion of non -commercial questions is the reason why an agreement has not been agreed for 18 years. The ALE negotiations between the two partners were launched for the first time in 2007, then suspended in 2013 due to “a gap of ambition”. The talks resumed in 2022 after the meeting of leaders in India-EU in May 2021.
When the interviewer expressed his dismay at the minister’s pessimistic remarks on Europe, Goyal said: “I am simply trying to wake up to Europe. You know, when I speak to European businessmen, or I speak to ministers before European business people, they all come and tell me, you seem as if you are our representative (not the representative of India, “he said.
“Almost unanimously, each company in Europe is in distress due to these non -tariff obstacles and regulations. Unless the European Union sits down and you follow, I can see a serious decline from the European Union and its future with self-imposed injuries. End of the day, what will happen to Europe will be an island between others;
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