&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "India-EU free trade deal sends signal that rules-based commerce still matters, new EU envoy Paquet says")
The European Union’s new ambassador to India has said a long-negotiated free trade agreement with New Delhi will create “one economic space” of two billion people and send a message that open, rules-based commerce still matters as global trade comes under strain.
Jean-Eric Paquet, who has just presented his credentials in New Delhi, told WION's Sidhant Sibal that India and the EU together account for “2 billion people, 25% of world GDP” and that their partnership would be “one of the most defining relationship[s] of this century”. This was his first TV interview after taking charge.
Negotiations on the pact were concluded in January. The European Commission put a proposal to sign the agreement to EU ministers on 11 September. “Everybody… is looking at the end of the year for the signature,” Paquet said. After that, he added, the European Parliament must give its assent, which “will take a few more months”, with “entry into force… in the first half of next year”.
He described the deal as the “mother of all trade agreement[s]” and “the biggest trade deal we ever entered into”. The economic effect, he said, would go beyond tariffs. The agreement “creates one economic space across Indian and the European internal markets… reduce[s] trade frictions… facilitate[s] investments” and lets firms work “across the two economies on their supply chains”. “The impact I think would be very, very deep, much deeper… than we are even anticipating.”
Paquet cast the pact as a political signal as well as a commercial one. Trade had “benefited humanity” for decades after the Second World War, he said, even as “the system is under pressure”. The message from Brussels and New Delhi was that “we all want these rules to be preserved” so firms have “predictability” and can “invest also into the future”.
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Investment protection talks should move “in sync” with the FTA, he said, because companies want to “invest in some parts of that supply chain”, not only ship goods.
Defence, he added, is a newer and fast-growing pillar after a security and defence partnership was signed in January. It covers diplomatic consultations, counter-terrorism and cybersecurity, plus maritime coordination in the region and industrial co-operation. Europe, he said, is “investing by 2030 [some] 800 billion euros” to rebuild capacity and will look to partners, including India, for supply chains. “This is really a space to watch.”
On the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor launched in Delhi in 2023, he accepted that conflict in West Asia had slowed progress, but said investment planning in India continues.
When it comes to the war in Ukraine, which is in its 5th year, he said, "whatever India can [do]… to [bring] Russia to the real ceasefire would be appreciated". Delhi has called for diplomacy to end the war, which has had a huge impact on global food, fuel and fertiliser prices.
He explained that the EU is “prioritising” its ties with India and other partners in the Indo-Pacific while treating China as both a vital trading partner and a source of “often unfair competition”. His own task, he said, was to make the agendas “practical [and] concrete” and to travel “across India”.
