- EU-India Trade Agreement: Brussels is pushing to accelerate the EU-India free trade agreement.
- Potential Impact: The agreement could be the largest ever concluded by either the EU or India.
- Relationship Focus: The push highlights the growing emphasis on trade, connectivity, and the Indo-Pacific in the EU-India relationship.
The European Union and India have moved another step closer to turning their long-negotiated trade opening into reality. The European Commission on Friday submitted proposals to the Council for the signature and conclusion of the EU-India Free Trade Agreement, seeking authorisation to proceed with what, once approved and entered into force, would become the largest trade agreement ever concluded by either Brussels or New Delhi.
The scale helps explain the political attention surrounding the deal. The EU and India already trade more than €180bn in goods and services annually, supporting close to 800,000 jobs in the bloc. The agreement would eliminate or reduce tariffs on 96 per cent of EU goods exports to India, with Brussels estimating that European exporters would save around €4bn a year in duties.
But the significance of the latest move goes beyond those numbers. For Brussels, the agreement is increasingly part of a broader attempt to give greater economic substance to its relationship with India at a moment of geopolitical uncertainty and growing pressure on the global trading system.
The Commission’s decision to move rapidly towards signature reflects that urgency. The proposal follows the fast-track procedure outlined earlier this year by Maroš Šefčovič, the EU commissioner for trade and economic security, designed to accelerate the implementation of free trade agreements.
“Timing matters,” Šefčovič said, describing an agreement connecting a market of 2bn people and around a quarter of global GDP.
That emphasis is telling. Trade policy is no longer being treated in Brussels simply as a question of tariffs and commercial opportunities. The speed at which agreements can be translated into market access, investment and more predictable economic relationships is acquiring greater strategic weight.
India fits particularly well into that calculus. The FTA would give European companies greater access to the Indian market, reduce trade barriers and establish more predictable rules for trade and investment. For New Delhi and Brussels, however, it also provides a stronger economic foundation for a relationship that the EU increasingly views through its wider engagement with the Indo-Pacific.
This is also where the trade agreement intersects, politically if not formally, with another project linking the two sides: the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC.
The two initiatives remain separate. Yet they point towards a similar strategic direction. While the FTA is designed to lower barriers and facilitate flows of goods, services and investment, IMEC provides the broader connectivity ambition linking India towards Europe through the Middle East.
The combination matters more than either acronym alone. A deeper EU-India economic relationship requires both rules that make exchanges easier and connectivity capable of sustaining them. The FTA addresses the first part of that equation. IMEC, if developed as envisaged, speaks to the second.
For Europe, this gives the relationship with India a dimension extending beyond the immediate benefits of lower tariffs. Trade and connectivity can become mutually reinforcing elements of a more structured economic partnership stretching from the Indo-Pacific towards Europe.
There are still institutional hurdles ahead. The Council must approve the signature of the agreement, which will then require the consent of the European Parliament before its conclusion and entry into force. Indian authorities are proceeding in parallel with their own domestic ratification process.
But Brussels’ decision to fast-track the agreement shows where the political momentum lies. The “mother of all trade deals” is moving closer to implementation. And behind the tariff schedules sits a larger proposition: whether Europe and India can turn growing economic ties, and the connectivity ambitions embodied by IMEC, into a more durable strategic relationship.
