After an eight-year hiatus, the Indian government has made the first official move seeking the resumption of India-EU talks on a free trade agreement (FTA), a government official said on Thursday, May 20.
The official stated that India’s minister for commerce, Piyush Goyal, last week officially communicated with his EU counterpart, Valdis Dombrovskis, seeking to restart talks on the FTA, a development which had been decided earlier this month at an India-EU Leadership Summit.
The resumption of talks will require the setting up of negotiating groups on different issues to begin formal engagements between the two sides, the official said.
The negotiations towards the India-EU Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) were started in 2007 but suspended in 2013 after 16 rounds of talks.