ABSTRACT

Since June 2007, India and the European Union (EU) have been negotiating a free-trade agreement (FTA) or, to be more specific, a broad-based Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA). It covers trade in goods, trade in services, investment, trade facilitation, trade defence, dispute settlement, the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime, competition, transparency in government procurement, and sustainable development, among others. There have been several rounds of negotiations — more than 10 rounds to date. Even after these many rounds of negotiations, some differences between the two negotiating parties remain yet to be resolved. At the time of writing this chapter, there was an uncertainty about when the agreement would be finalised. It appeared that the agreement was unlikely to get finalised before the middle of 2014 or perhaps, could take longer.