Eu trade deal talks piyush goyal lashes out at non trade barriers in eu

Eu trade deal talks piyush goyal lashes out at non trade barriers in eu

NEW DELHI: No self-respecting nation can have a free trade agreement with the European Union unless the latter stops superimposing its non-trade agenda into bilateral trade negotiations, India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday hinting that New Delhi will not sign any FTA with the EU if it insists on including matters such as the carbon tax and deforestation regulations in the pact.

Replying to a specific question on the timeline of the India-EU FTA negotiations at the 9th Global Technology Summit co-hosted by Carnegie India and the ministry of external affairs (MEA), Goyal said: “My sense is, we’ll be able to complete most of the discussions quite amicably.”

“There will be two areas on which European Union will have to rethink,” he caveated. “One is these non-trade issues which they seek to superimpose into trade agenda. Unless they get that out of their system, and the European Commission will need to reflect on it… it [will be] very difficult to get a trade agreement with anybody, whatsoever,” he said.

“Any self-respecting country cannot sign up on commitments which are irrational, beyond the realm of trade,” he said explaining that the EU cannot impose non-trade commitments on India when it is not the real culprit on matters related to climate change. When “the rest of the world has been responsible for the problem in the first place” the EU must not seek to put the blame “on our head as if it’s our responsibility to resolve”, he said candidly.

Speaking about the second issue, Goyal said: “Europe today is in a crisis, in my humble opinion, because of the severity of the non-tariff barriers that Europe has created. The United States has talked about it. Unless Europe recognises the path that they’re going down… I see serious difficulty for Europe to be able to do trade with any country, forget India.”

“And, I am actually a worried man for the very future of the European Union and their businesses, given the kind of… difficult non-tariff barriers that they have set up, both for their own businesses and for the rest of the world,” he added.

India and EU resumed the FTA negotiations in June 2022 after a gap of nine years. Since then, they have finished nine rounds of negotiation and resumed the 10th round after elections in Europe. According to officials, the EU’s instance on including non-trade matters is the reason that a deal could not be agreed upon for last 18 years. The FTA negotiations between the two partners were first launched in 2007 and then suspended in 2013 due to “a gap in ambition”. The talks resumed in 2022 after the India-EU leaders’ meeting in May 2021.

When the interviewer expressed her dismay over the minister’s pessimistic remarks on Europe, Goyal said: “I’m just trying to give a wake-up call for Europe. You know, when I talk to European business persons, or talk to ministers in front of European business persons, they all come and tell me, you sound as if you are our representative, [and] not the representative of India,” he said.

“Almost unanimously, every business in Europe is in distress because of these non-tariff barriers and regulations. Unless the European Union sits down and addresses this, I can see a severe decline in the European Union and its future with self-imposed injury. End of the day, what will happen is Europe will be an island in between; the rest of the world will trade with each other and Europe will have to look after itself,” he said.