Trade talks with EU need political direction for meaningful deal: Govt

New Delhi: India and the EU are working towards a balanced, ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial free trade agreement (FTA) and the talks need political directions to reach a commercially meaningful deal while understanding each other’s sensitivities, the government said Thursday.

The pact came up for discussion during an interaction between commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and ambassadors of the European Commission delegation.

“The FTA negotiations, after nine rounds of intense engagement, need political directions to arrive at a commercially meaningful deal while understanding the sensitivities of each other,” the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.

“When I was talking to EU with respect to our FTA negotiations, they were telling us that the EU may be more competitive in terms of manufacturing but India is much more competitive in terms of services exports. And they (EU) want to have this balance in the FTA with respect to services and we said yes, we (India) will do so, because we feel that the services sector has a huge potential to grow,” commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said.

Goyal noted that any sustainability discussions must appreciate the principle of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR) and implementation of such measures should take into account differing paths of development.

Both sides also held discussions under the India-EU Trade and Technology Council. India is the only country, other than the US, with which the EU has such a mechanism.