In a stunning turnaround, India and the European Union recently revived negotiations for a free trade agreement after talks halted nearly a decade ago — and observers say it could have been driven by “unprecedented urgency.”
Current geopolitical concerns appear to have forced both sides to iron out their differences and pursue a trade deal, though the decision to resume talks was made a year ago.
“I don’t think these negotiations are going to be easy, even now. But necessity can be the mother of invention. There is indeed an unprecedented urgency to deepening India-EU ties,” said Amrita Narlikar, professor and president of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA).
The fresh impetus is mainly due to “the authoritarian advance on the borders of both EU and India,” she added, referring to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has brought the threat directly to Europe’s border.
For India, it’s the increasing military confrontations with China along their shared border, which escalated in 2020 when soldiers from both sides clashed and more than a dozen were killed.
“The seriousness of new geoeconomic threats, which have most recently involved the weaponization of energy and food supplies for strategic purposes, reveal that we need more reliable value chains,” Narlikar, who is also an honorary fellow of Darwin College at the University of Cambridge, told CNBC.
Last Update: 20/07/2022