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India and the EU may consider an early harvest trade agreement, which can be clinched early, before finalising a comprehensive deal that could take a lot of time due to diverse issues, senior officials said.
“There are some issues—not core trade matters— that are taking more time. We believe it is better to first focus on core issues. We are discussing with the EU what early harvest we can do. We are taking a pragmatic approach with the EU,” Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said at an interaction with the media on Tuesday.
In February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen decided to work towards concluding the negotiations for the proposed India-EU FTA by the end of 2025.
US tariff impact
The urgency in concluding the talks could be mostly attributed to US President Donald Trump’s plans of imposing reciprocal tariffs on trade partners, although the two leaders did not make a direct mention of it.
However, the EU’s keenness in including non-trade issues in its trade pacts, such as labour standards, environmental regulations, gender and sustainability provisions, could lead to delays as these are economically and politically sensitive matters in India, an official said.
In an early harvest deal, trade partners could focus on certain aspects of a trade deal, that are low-hanging fruits, while leaving other items to be taken up at a later time..
“If the non-trade issues are excluded then the possibility of wrapping up the negotiations with a focus on trade by the year-end increases,” the official explained. The EU is India’s largest regional trade partner.
India and Australia, for instance, agreed on an early harvest pact in December 2022 and are now working on a comprehensive pact. India and the US, too, have plans of concluding the proposed bilateral trade agreement in tranches.
The 11th round of negotiations for the proposed FTA between India and EU is scheduled during May 12-16 in New Delhi.
Negotiations for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) between India and South American nation Chile was launched on April 1, according to Commerce Additional Secretary L Satya Srinivas.
Chile is the fifth largest trading partner of India in the LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean) region with bilateral trade in goods at $3.59 billion during April-February 2024-25.
India is also in talks with Peru for a FTA and the seventh round of talks took place earlier this month.
Published on April 15, 2025
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