FM Sitharaman indicates India-EU FTA possibly by December-end

NEW DELHI : On a day India and the UK clinched a free trade pact, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman said New Delhi could achieve a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union by December this year as there were just “one or two items” on which each side was fixated. FM, however, called for some flexibility to achieve the FTA.

“Negotiation is about the art of making it possible. You need to have everything done to make it possible to achieve. But when there are fixed positions, someone will have to relax, bring in the elasticity,” Sitharaman said.

She was speaking at the ‘ADB Governors Seminar: Cross Border Collaboration for Future Resilience’ in Milan, Italy. Except for one or two items on which each side was fixated there was largely an agreement that could be through. “The European Union is top of our priority because of the traditional links which we have with the EU… If negotiations go forward in that spirit, the December (deadline) is not impossible to achieve,” the minister said.

FM said that the global fragmentation and also the way in which the April Tariff announcement by the US has panned out, uncertainties are increasing and simultaneously global institutions are not carrying the heft they were carrying earlier.

“In such a situation, countries are today looking at bilateral arrangements. In the case of the EU, India has been negotiating for quite some time. But today, the sense of urgency is felt by both sides because the market can be one big market,” the FM added.