India, the EU seeks to conclude talks for an early harvest agreement by July 2025: government sources

Government sources have informed CNBC-TV18 that India and the European Union (EU) aim to conclude negotiations for an anticipated harvest agreement by July 2025, similar to the agreement signed with Australia. This early harvesting agreement will tackle issues such as non -tariff rates and obstacles, intellectual property rights, government purchases, technical obstacles to trade and health and phytosanitary measures.

The chief negotiator of India, Satya Srinivas, is already in Brussels to accelerate discussions for a free trade agreement (ALE). In addition to the ALE, India and the EU continue a two -step approach which includes a bilateral agreement on investment protection and the recognition of geographic indications (GIS) with the block of 27 members.

Negotiations cover 23 political areas, including trade in goods and services, investment protection, customs procedures, technical obstacles, intellectual property rights and sustainable development. The 11th round of AFT talks in India-EU took place in New Delhi from 12 to 16 May.
While the EU proposed changes to the Patent Act of India to allow a patent “ persistence of patents in pharmaceutical products, India has already rejected similar requests from the United Kingdom and Switzerland for the exclusivity of data in order to protect its generic pharmaceutical industry within the framework of ALE with the United Kingdom and the European Free Association (EFTA).

During the 201023-24 fiscal year, trade in EU bilateral products in India totaled $ 137.41 billion, with Indian exports worth $ 75.92 billion and imports to $ 61.48 billion, which makes EU’s largest negotiation partner. The EU represents almost 17% of the total exports of India, while India represents 9% of the total sales abroad of the EU.