“If not the mother of all deals, it’s certainly a very, very consequential FTA, not just for India, but for India and the European Union,” says Shishir Priyadarshi, president of the Chintan Research Foundation and former IAS officer who served as a director in the World Trade Organisation.
“So you’ve got to look at it both in terms of what it gives substantively, to the bloc of 27 countries in India. But also very importantly and not too much is being talked about it, the kind of psychological impetus it would give to a world which is increasingly being let’s say pressured, under various tariff and trade measures,” he said during a conversation on The Gist.
The India-EU FTA is a long way from implementation. It will undergo legal and other vetting at the EU headquarters in Brussels.
“I just don’t see it as being you know tabled and being passed. No. Certainly not,” he said but in his view, the EU has given far more concessions to India than say the one signed with the Mercosur bloc.
More important, the India FTA will be scrutinised for any dilution of the European Union’s sustainability and regulatory standards. The chapters on labour, the chapters on environment, the chapters on regulatory conditionalities to be fulfilled will come under very close microscopic watch.
Priyadarshi was hopeful Indian industry is now ready for the big leap they will have to take to capitalize on the FTA.
“After the FTA has come into being and maybe a year or two after that, once you actually see whether the market access that’s been provided by the FTA is being converted into, actual trade. The government of India would have to play a very important and proactive role, they’ll have to seek out from industry what exactly they want in the context of standards, in the context of compliance. And I think this, this action will have to very much go down to the state level.”
Tune in for more in this conversation with Shishir Priyadarshi, president of the Chintan Research Foundation, on the India-EU FTA.
