India, EU reached 'some kind of understanding' on certain divergent issues; next round of FTA talks in September

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Narendra Modi

India and the European Union (EU) have reached “some kind of understanding on some of the divergent issues” in the latest round of talks for a trade deal between them, commerce ministry’s special secretary L. Satya Srinivas said on July 15.

The next round of negotiations for the trade deal are likely to be in the first week of September in India, Srinivas added.

“We have just finished the twelfth-round last week, that was on Friday and we have exchanged our offers on services and non-services, so discussion was on market access offers related to services and non-services. And we also discussed about the key interest in the market access related to goods as well,” Srinivas told reporters.

Moneycontrol had reported on July 9 that the Indian government is looking to expedite an early-harvest deal with the EU, however concluding an interim pact by July-end remains tricky, given that several issues remain unresolved.

Srinivas said, “In the previous round in India, we finished some chapters and this round as well we could come to closure of couple of chapters and also other chapters in which divergence was there we discussed those. And we had some kind of understanding in some of those divergent issues. It was a productive round and we covered a large number of areas.”

While India wants a three-year moratorium on EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) for its Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the European bloc is pushing for greater access for its whisky, wine and cars, Moneycontrol had reported.

In February, India and EU decided to ramp up talks for a proposed free trade agreement and close it by the end of 2025, but then agreed to conclude an interim version first.

On the ongoing review of the trade pact between India and the ASEAN bloc, special secretary Rajesh Agarwal said, “the progress thus far has been chequered and not completely to our liking, we would have liked much more progress. But good part is we are moving on many aspects especially on customs and trade facilitation….and there are discussions around market access.”

The tenth round of talks with ASEAN to review the existing pact is likely to be in August in New Delhi, with another expected in October in Malaysia, Agarwal added.

“So, we hope in these two rounds we should be able to make good progress, and come to some conclusion when the ASEAN-India summit takes place in October-end. The endeavour is towards that direction, let’s see how much we can achieve,” he said.

The free trade agreement, which came into effect in 2010, has been criticised by the current government for not adequately addressing the trade imbalance, with imports from ASEAN growing faster than India's exports to the region.

The ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), which is under review since February 2024 is expected to be concluded by 2025-end.