Trade on Top of the Agenda: Indian Prime Minister Modi in Europe

Hopes are high that the EU and India might resume negotiations on their pending free trade agreement. Our newest GED Infographic tells you all you need to know about a possible agreement.

In times of Trump and Brexit, a free trade agreement (FTAs) between the EU and India would have a strong strategic value and send a positive signal for free trade in general. After all, free trade has contributed to lifting millions of people out of poverty over the past decades and FTAs are supposed to set the framework for promoting trade between different regions.

For the EU, a trade deal with Asia’s soon-to-be most populous country would be an important step towards this dynamic region and might even become part of – to echo Obama’s Asia strategy for the US – a potential “pivot to Asia” of the European Union. For India, the FTA would offer the chance to strengthen ties with its most important trade partnerand a chance to get more tightly integrated into global supply chains.

In their joint statement following the 4th Indo-German Intergovernmental Consultation on May 29-30 2017, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, therefore “reaffirmed their strong commitment to the EU-India Broad Based Trade and Investment Agreement and their commitment to bring about a resumption of the negotiations at the earliest possible date”.

However, we are still dealing here with an FTA between a highly developed region and an emerging economy. So as we discussed in our previous blogpost on this topic, there are many hurdles and conflicting interests to resolve before the EU and India will finally be able to resume negotiations. The diversity of interests within the EU as well as the disparity in industrialization makes the negotiations harder but not impossible.

If the EU and India were to overcome these differences and to finally conclude a bilateral trade deal, both regions could clearly reap economic gains. This would also be the logical extension of the EU India strategic partnership which is yet to realize its full potential. To learn more about the potential economic effects a free trade agreement between the EU and India, please check out our new infographic which gives an overview of the most important results.