There is a “political will” in the EU for the ALE with India: Senior Director, Sweden PMO

euindia April 17, 2025

New Delhi: The European Union has the “political will” to negotiate a free trade agreement with India, according to Jon Simonsson, principal director of the Prime Minister’s office in Sweden.

“There is now a very strong political momentum in the EU to manifest itself and really put in place the ALE (with India), and with these, I think that the developments go back again faster,” Simonsson told Ani on the sidelines of the Summit of World Carnegie World Technology.

“There are many common points between the interests of the EU and in Indian interests. I really think that we could collaborate more in this area, and political will is also there. So doing something here is an obvious thing to do,” he said.

India-European Union (EU) Negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement (ALE) were officially relaunched on June 17, 2022, following the announcement of EU leaders in Porto on May 8, 2021.

Negotiations cover 23 areas / political chapters. Several series of negotiations took place from afar.
In addition, speaking of India and the way he can take advantage of AI, the Swedish official said that India had an excellent knowledge base of startups, engineers and technical universities.

“It is really a question of providing the right conditions for this group of people to do their job, innovating, testing new things … And I think that one of the advantages of China has been that this very strong concept of the culture of learning and development of new things. India also has this, but we must add more easily for students and entrepreneurs to go in this way and do things,” he added.

He said that financing such technology is also essential.

“Of course, funding is also a very important tool to set up this type of experimentation, but now with more than more unicorns based in India, of course, there are now entrepreneurs who could give back to the company and invest in new startups that do exactly what others have done. So, I think you (India) have a good opportunity now to use and cultivate your ecosystem, which increases the ecosystem, Roundy civil servant.