Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said that official-level negotiations for India’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union are being concluded, and both sides are set to announce the successful conclusion of talks on January 27. He added that the formal signing of the deal will take place after legal scrubbing, which is likely to take about six months. Describing the agreement as “balanced and forward-looking” for deeper economic integration with the EU, he said it would propel trade and investment between the two sides.
However, the deal will take time to come into force, given the lengthy procedures that follow the announcement. In an exclusive conversation with CNBC-TV18’s Parikshit Luthra yesterday, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič outlined the implementation timeline. He said legal scrubbing would begin after the announcement of the conclusion of talks on January 27, following which the text would be translated into the EU’s 24 official languages. The agreement would then need ratification by the European Parliament before being formally signed by the trade ministers of the EU and India. He expressed hope that the deal could be implemented by 2027.
Several of India’s recent trade deals—with the United Kingdom, Oman and New Zealand—where the conclusion of negotiations has already been announced, are also yet to come into effect due to ongoing legal scrubbing and other procedural formalities. Trade agreements can take anywhere from a few months to over a year to become operational after talks conclude, depending on factors such as the speed and complexity of legal scrubbing, the number of chapters involved, differences in legislative processes, and the time required to implement changes in duty regimes.
