In this episode of Interpreting India, Vrinda Sahai is joined by Nicolas Köhler-Suzuki, Advisor for Trade and Economic Security at the Jacques Delors Institute, for a detailed conversation on the India-EU Free Trade Agreement. After decades of slow-moving negotiations, both sides have arrived at what is shaping up to be the most ambitious trade deal India has ever signed. Nicolas unpacks what is in the agreement, what is missing, and what its success will depend on in the years ahead.
What finally brought India and the EU to the table after years of negotiations going nowhere, and why the timing matters as much as the deal itself? How does this agreement compare to India's previous trade deals and to the EU's agreements with other partners, and where are the clearest gaps? How significant are the non-tariff barriers including the EU's regulatory standards? What do the mobility provisions mean for Indian IT professionals, and how realistic are the promises given the political climate across EU member states?
Episode Notes
For most of the last decade, a trade deal between India and the EU seemed unlikely. The nudge came as the world changed around both. Nicolas points to three converging forces: the pressure of US tariffs under Trump, which gave both sides political incentive to show they had other partners; the shared interest in reducing dependence on China for critical supply chains; and India's loss of GSP preferential treatment in the EU from January this year, which created a very concrete economic urgency on the Indian side. Together, these forces did what years of diplomatic goodwill could not.
The deal itself is ambitious by India's standards, covering tariff elimination on 96.6% of EU goods exports, significant reductions on cars, wine and spirits, and new services commitments across sectors that were previously off the table. But Nicolas is candid about the gaps. There is no chapter on government procurement, the sustainability provisions lack any real enforcement mechanism, and investment protection has been deferred to a separate negotiation. On the regulatory side, Indian exporters still face the carbon border adjustment mechanism on steel and aluminium, strict food safety standards that have already led to hundreds of rejected shipments, and product testing requirements that a tariff cut alone cannot resolve.
On mobility, Nicolas notes that the framework for Indian professionals is genuinely more promising than what was on offer in the original negotiations, partly because the UK is no longer in the room and partly because Europe's labour market has shifted significantly. But immigration policy remains a national competence, and many EU governments are currently run by or in coalition with parties for whom restricting migration is a core political position. The gap between what Brussels signs and what Vienna or Rome implement could be quite wide, and managing expectations around this will be one of the more delicate parts of the implementation process ahead.
