India-EU April Summit Cancelled – FTA in Limbo Once Again

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A planned April summit between the EU and India has been cancelled, officials confirmed.

An EU parliamentary delegation is visiting India this week, having planned to lay the groundwork for the upcoming summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his EU counterparts. Officials on both sides have told news media that they are interested in reviewing past areas of trade disagreements to see if they can inject momentum into the long-running talks.

Some officials have indicated that the postponement could be to the discussions’ benefit. Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal told the LiveMint news agency that the cancellation of Modi’s visit to Brussels could allow negotiators “time to work on narrowing differences.”

Eight years of talks

Negotiations for a bilateral pact began in June 2007, but after several rounds of talks the momentum dropped off in mid-2013, with no rounds being held since.

Among the broad range of subjects slated for treatment by the India-EU FTA are market access in goods, services, and government procurement; their investment framework; and labour and environmental issues.

The talks have long struggled to push past differences on areas such as geographical indications, insurance, investment laws, intellectual property rights, services, and automobile and wine tariffs.

Trade between Asia’s third biggest economy and the 28-member EU has boomed in recent years, adding to the urgency of concluding the talks. Between 2003 and 2013, bilateral trade nearly tripled from €28.6 billion to €72.7 billion, according to EU statistics.