Win-win deal for India, EU

The signing of the FTA signals a pragmatic approach in the midst of global churn

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India and the EU first launched their free trade negotiations in 2007, when the world was a very different place.

Global growth seemed to have overcome cyclical disruptions, globalisation appeared almost invincible, and the prevailing economic sentiment was overflowing with unbridled optimism. These talks were suspended in 2013. Both India and Europe had their share of problems by that time, rooted mostly in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Since the time talks were relaunched in 2022 and gained momentum, the world has been dealing with the scars of a once-in-a-century pandemic’s economic disruption and, in more recent times, a US government that has been forcing the my-way-and-not-the-globalisation-highway diktat down the world’s throat. If globalisation, not just in the sense of freer markets but also fairer markets, has to be salvaged from its current crisis today, it needs powerful bilaterals that can revive everybody's confidence in the dying art of multilateralism.