NEW DELHI: A high-level trade and investment dialogue between India and the European Union, set up after the first virtual India-EU summit on Wednesday, is expected to move to a broad-based free trade agreement that has held out promise but has been stalled for the past seven years. The convergence on economic initiatives was significant in the context of sluggish world growth in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and India and EU seeing the need for a closer embrace that includes shared strategic goals.
According to an agency report, EU president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU sought an “ambitious” free trade deal with India and the high-level dialogue would help the two sides towards achieving that goal.
India and the EU agreed to enhance convergences to ensure a “high level of protection of personal data and privacy, including through possible data adequacy decisions, with a view to facilitating safe and secure cross-border data flows between them”. The reference is important in view of concerns over China’s state-sponsored data theft. The two sides also decided to engage on 5G and AI to foster “their safe and ethical deployment”.
Asked about the CAA and J&K, European Council president Charles Michel said, “Regarding the citizenship law, you know that in the European Parliament, this was an important topic. And we raised this issue in our talks. I would like to say that we trust Indian institutions. We understand the Supreme Court will have a role to play to assess this legislation. We took a decision with India to continue a dialogue on human rights in order to exchange best practices and have the best understanding on how to tackle this issue for India and the EU.”
Michel added, “We welcome India’s proposal for a connectivity partnership that is open, sustainable and rules based.” During the summit, PM Modi said the partnership was crucial for global peace and stability in the current juncture.