New Delhi \u2014 India and the European Union agreed to wrap up a free trade deal by the end of this year, the two sides announced Friday following talks in the Indian capital between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. While negotiations between India and the EU have dragged on for years, analysts say there is a greater urgency to conclude a pact as the threat of tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump prompts many countries to ramp up efforts to increase access to markets outside the U.S. Von der Leyen came to New Delhi along with leaders of EU countries. Following talks with the Indian prime minister, she called India a \u201clike-minded friend\u201d and said that \u201cwe have tasked our teams to build on this momentum\u201d to finalize a free trade pact. Both sides also discussed elevating their defense and security partnership. Modi said they had prepared a \u201cblueprint for collaboration\u201d in areas such as trade, technology, investment and security. Before her meeting with Modi, von der Leyen said the EU and India \u201chave the potential to be one of the defining partnerships of this century\u201d and it was time to take their strategic partnership to \u201cthe next level.\u201d A flux in geopolitics is pushing countries to diversify partnerships, analysts say. \u201cFor India, which is scrambling to navigate the turbulence unleashed by Trump, Europe emerges as a valuable partner,\u201d political analyst C. Raja Mohan wrote in The Indian Express newspaper. \u201cWhile neither can afford to disengage from the U.S., both India and Europe must do more to strengthen their ties in response to Trump\u2019s unpredictable policies.\u201d A free trade agreement between the EU and India \u201cwould be the largest deal of this kind anywhere in the world,\u201d von der Leyen said. \u201cIt is time to be pragmatic and ambitious and to realign our priorities for today\u2019s realities.\u201d Trump has said he will impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from the European Union. His plans for reciprocal tariffs also will hit Indian exports to the U.S. The EU is India\u2019s largest trading partner in goods \u2014 bilateral trade was more than $130 billion in 2023-24. Negotiations between India and the EU began years ago but were stalled for eight years before resuming in 2021. The main sticking points have been New Delhi’s reluctance to lower tariffs on key European imports to India, such as cars, whiskey and wine, while the EU has been reluctant to concede New Delhi\u2019s demand to ease visa curbs on Indian professionals. India also wants greater access to the EU for cheaper drugs and chemicals. India, the world\u2019s fifth largest economy with a large middle class, is seen as an attractive market but has high protectionist barriers. Earlier this week, India and the UK also resumed trade talks during a visit by British business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds to New Delhi. India\u2019s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, said both countries aim to double bilateral trade in a decade. Reynolds said that securing a trade deal was a \u201ctop priority\u201d for his government. Trade analysts say there is a \u201csense of urgency\u201d to seal trade pacts. \u201cIt seems there is a real intent on part of India and other partner countries to do something this time. The timing is important \u2013 President Trump\u2019s threat of tariffs can cause trade disruptions. So, I think countries want to conclude deals before the global mood changes from being relatively open to more protectionist,\u201d according to trade analyst Biswajit Dhar in New Delhi. While India has made slow progress in clinching free trade pacts in the past, it is now stepping up efforts to conclude deals amid fears that potential shifts in global trade could pose a challenge to meeting Prime Minister Modi’s goal of growing exports to $1 trillion by 2030. \u201cThe trade uncertainties being unleashed by Trump\u2019s tariffs will push the Indian government to look at the levels of protection in the country more closely. It can\u2019t afford that any longer,\u201d said Dhar. \u201cEvery major country is interested in the large Indian market but complains about high tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi \u2014 India and the European Union agreed to wrap up a free trade deal by the end of this year, the two sides announced Friday following talks in the Indian capital between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. While negotiations between India and the EU have dragged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":29289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}