NEW DELHI: India needs to show greater political will to conclude the long pending Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU), ambassadors of some of the Nordic countries in India observed on Thursday.
“FTA is a fundamental requirement between countries... The Indian government needs to come together and enable us to conclude the discussions,” said Thorir Obsen, ambassador of Iceland. He was speaking at an event on India-Nordic partnership organised by the Anata Aspen Centre.
Similar views were expressed by Peter Taksoe-Jensen, ambassador of Denmark, who stressed on the need for political intervention to address the issues and that it cannot be left to technical experts alone.
“The overall India-EU relationship is very important so we need to have a serious political talk on how we can go forward and if we can separate the investment protection and the free trade,” said Nina Vaskunlahti, ambassador of Finland.
She said that India has to be more forthcoming on the tariffs when it comes to commodities, manufacturing goods, data security and others.
The chief negotiators of India and EU concluded the third round of technical discussions a couple of weeks back. One diplomat at the event said that now the need is for some political discussion on the issue.
“The unfortunate issue is that the Indian offer on tariffs is worse than it was three years ago. India is very reluctant to take into account our concerns on workers’ rights and child labour, issues which are important to us,” the diplomat said.
Talks between India and EU on FTA have dragged on for a long time due to differences over tariffs and Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), among others.
The first India-Nordic summit was held this year in Stockholm during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Sweden. The Nordic countries include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The ambassadors stressed on the shared values between India and Nordic nations and called for greater push to exploit the relationship to full potential.