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  1. Negotiations

EU-India


The European Union and India launched negotiations on a bilateral free trade and investment agreement in June 2007. However, between the governments, a number of controversies have been plaguing the talks. Delhi wants Brussels to relax its stringent food safety criteria which penalise Indian farm and fishery exports and to make it easier for Indian professionals to work in the EU. Europe is primarily out to win major openings of India’s services sector and broad liberalisation of foreign investment, while India does not want to discuss allowing European firms to compete in India’s government procurement market.

Indian social movements, including fisherfolk and labour unions, people living with HIV/AIDS and other health activists have been mobilizing against the FTA. International actions and campaigns have particularly targeted the proposed intellectual property provisions of the agreement, and the impact of the FTA on access to medicines.

last update: May 2012
Photo: MSF

EU team on a visit to B’lore
14-Jan-2012    
Ahead of the India-EU Summit scheduled to be held in New Delhi in February this year, a high-level delegation from the European Union will pay a four-day official visit to India starting on January 15.
India-EU FTA could hurt local auto industry: Patel
1-Jan-2012    
Even as the negotiations for the impending India- European Union (EU) free trade agreement (FTA) seem to have entered the last stage, heavy industries minister Praful Patel has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressing concerns on the adverse impact of such a move on the domestic industry.
Peasants stage protest rally
17-Dec-2011     The Sangai Express
Peasants coming from 14 villages of Imphal West district today staged a protest rally followed by a mass meeting demanding an immediate halt to the ongoing negotiation to seal the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement.
EU-India deal could spell disaster
16-Dec-2011     IPS
As the Eighth Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation kicked off in Geneva this week, a group of NGOs exposed the devastating potential of a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union and India. If passed, they say the deal would make a mockery of all WTO rules and regulations.
NGO asks European Commission not to push India to accept IP provisions in EU-India FTA
15-Dec-2011     PharmaBiz
As the 14th round of negotiations on the EU-India free trade agreement is held in Delhi, an NGO working in the health sector has urged the European Union not to push India to accept IP provisions in the deal
New EU trade agreement: Right to food in India threatened
12-Dec-2011     Ecofair Trade Dialogue
MISEREOR, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Third World Network, Anthra and Glopolis decided to conduct their own civil society impact assessment of the proposed EU-India FTA with a focus on the right to food.
Conference on human rights and the EU-India free trade agreement
12-Dec-2011     Greens/EFA
VIdeo of a conference organised by the Greens / European Free Alliance in the European Parliament on 8 December 2011
EU-India FTA negotiations: DNP+ protest
9-Dec-2011    
DNP+ believes that IP should be completely be removed from the trade negotiations.
Free trade agreements threaten right to food and health
8-Dec-2011    
Just on the day when the government suspended its decision on FDI in the retail sector, a report by United Nations’ Working Group on Human Rights in India pointed that the country’s free trade agreements (FTA) threaten the rights to food, health, work and development, especially of vulnerable groups.
India, EU finalise give-&-take in FTA
22-Nov-2011     Business Standard
Negotiations for the ambitious India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) is on in “full steam” and in the final stages of “give-and-take”, even as the euro zone crisis has gripped all its 27 member-countries.