India and EU negotiators earlier this month made significant progress but continued to differ on key areas including automobiles and agriculture, a status report released by the European Union (EU) on Wednesday showed. The report said the next round of talks is expected to take place in Brussels next month.
The report said that high-level interventions by senior EU officials with Indian authorities were useful in better understanding each side’s position but did not “allow sufficient progress in sensitive areas such as automotives and agricultural products”.
“The focus of negotiators was, as in previous recent rounds, to advance on the core pillars of a future agreement with the aim of getting closer to an economically meaningful market access package. While some progress was made in certain outstanding areas, in particular on rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, and investment, no additional chapter could be closed this time,” the report said.
“Still, negotiators managed to reach better clarity on their respective offensive and defensive interests in market access for goods, both in industrial and agricultural sectors, and in-depth discussions were held based on the market access offers for services and investment that had been exchanged in July,” the report said.
On the crucial goods chapter, the report said discussions led to the closing of certain open provisions. “They also paved the way for further progress during the next round. Outstanding issues relate to only a few articles for which high-level engagement will likely be necessary. On the tariff elimination/reduction front, negotiators clarified their current positions. Both sides indicated their priority requests, for which high-level intervention will also be needed. Discussions will continue at the next round with the aim of making further progress on all remaining issues,” the report said.
The European Commission, in a report to the European Parliament earlier this month had said that the EU is India’s largest trading partner, while India is the EU’s largest one in the Global South. In 2024, bilateral trade in goods reached €120 billion – an increase of nearly 90 per cent over the past decade and around 6,000 European companies operate in India.
The report said that the EU is committed to scaling up investments in India through ‘Global Gateway’, by de-risking private-sector investment with guarantees and blended finance. Global Gateway is the European Union’s strategy to boost smart, clean and secure connections in digital, energy and transport sectors, and to strengthen health, education and research systems across the world. The Team Europe Global Gateway investment portfolio in India already exceeds €15 billion, spanning sectors such as renewable energy, water, urban transport and digital infrastructure.
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