EU needs to deliver as India accelerates rollout of free trade pact, report says

A new report highlights India’s growing strategic importance to the West amid shifting global geopolitics. As New Delhi fast-tracks the India-EU free trade agreement, the pressure turns to Brussels to prove it can deliver as a credible trading bloc

New Delhi: India, the world’s fastest growing economy, has gained increasing importance among Western countries amid the drastic changes in the global landscape triggered by Donald Trump taking over as US President, China’s increasing alienation and the continuing Ukraine-Russia war, according to a new report.

The India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) reflects this change as Europe looks to diversify its markets, fortify its supply chains and find reliable strategic partners.

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However, India is not passively waiting for Brussels to set the pace. The Indian government has begun working to implement the commitments made in the pact as quickly as possible and to protect the economic benefits of the agreement from its initial phase. It is now up to the EU to prove that it can deliver on what it promises as a bloc, according to an article in the European Conservative.

“The EU presents its relationship with India as one of its major geo-economic bets. Bilateral trade in goods and services already exceeds 180 billion euros annually, and Brussels estimates that the agreement could save European exporters around 4 billion euros a year in tariffs. For the Commission, India is an indispensable partner because of the size of its market, its demographic weight, its industrial capacity, and its strategic position in the Indo-Pacific,” states the article by Javier Villamor, a Spanish journalist.

The article highlights that India has now asked Brussels for guarantees against future European restrictions that could affect exports of certain recyclable materials, including metal scrap used by the steel and aluminium industries. The issue is technical, but it serves to test the extent to which the EU can reconcile its internal rules with the trade commitments it signs with strategic partners.

India and Western Europe will continue to tighten their ties. What remains to be seen is whether the European Union will be able to act as a credible trading bloc, or whether it will once again show that its geopolitical ambition moves faster than its capacity for execution, the article observes.