A high level trade and investment dialogue between India and the European Union, set up after the first virtual India-EU summit last week, 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 a, 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 crossborder 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”. In his inaugural remarks at the 15th EU-India summit, Prime Minister Modi said he was committed to enhance ties with the grouping, noting that a long-term strategic perspective should be adopted to boost the relationship.
"We should go for an action-oriented agenda to expand ties and it can be implemented within a stipulated time frame," Modi said at the virtual summit. Calling India and EU as "natural partners", the prime minister said the partnership is beneficial for peace and stability in the world.
