{"id":18810,"date":"2018-04-17T17:42:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T12:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=18810"},"modified":"2018-04-17T17:42:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T12:12:08","slug":"india-eu-bilateral-trade-and-investment-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-eu-bilateral-trade-and-investment-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"INDIA-EU Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Context:<\/b> Bilateral Trade Investment Agreement (BTIA) to be discussed amongst others during the <\/span>bilateral meeting with Swedish Prime Minister<\/b> and while co-hosting the<\/span> first India-Nordic Summit.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Background:<\/b>India and the EU have failed to pick up negotiations on the BTIA since they <\/span>broke down in 2013<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is BTIA? <\/b>
\n<\/b>Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement is a Free Trade Agreement between India and EU, which was <\/span>initiated in 2007<\/b>. Even after a <\/span>decade of negotiations<\/b>, India and EU have<\/span> failed to resolve certain issues<\/b> which have led to a <\/span>deadlock.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Points of contention between India and EU:<\/b><\/p>\n

1)India has not been granted \u201c<\/span>data secure\u201d status<\/b> by EU.<\/span><\/p>\n

2)<\/span>U.K. visa rules<\/b> discriminate against Indian technical professionals including because they have hiked visa fees and have numerical caps on visas. <\/span><\/p>\n

3)EU imposed a <\/span>ban on sale of 700 pharmaceutical products<\/b> even though they were clinically tested by GVK Biosciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

4)<\/span>India cancelled most bilateral investment agreements<\/b> with EU member states in 2016 on grounds that they were outdated. <\/span><\/p>\n

5)Presence of <\/span>non-tariff barriers on Indian agricultural products<\/b> in the form of sanitary and phytosanitary measures which are too stringent and enable the EU to bar many Indian agricultural products from entering its markets.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What EU wants?<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Reduce taxes on <\/span>liquor<\/b> (which would benefit France) <\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Reduce taxes on <\/span>automobiles<\/b> (which would benefit Germany)<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. More market access with<\/span> less duty interference. <\/b><\/li>\n
  4. Multilateral pact on investments at the World Trade Organisations that will have an I<\/span>nvestor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)<\/b> mechanism which will allow corporations to take sovereign governments to international arbitration.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. To negotiate the<\/span> Bilateral Investment Treaty<\/b> before it starts negotiating the EU-India BTIA<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Wants India to <\/span>liberalise accountancy and legal services.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Why India does not want to give in to EU\u2019s demands?<\/b><\/p>\n

    1)India is presently trying to <\/span>set up its own automobile industry<\/b> which would not be able to match the <\/span>competition from EU automobiles.<\/b><\/p>\n

    2)India <\/span>does not provide similar privileges to any other country<\/b>. Subsequently, demands for the same would be raised by others.<\/span><\/p>\n

    3)<\/span>Tax reduction on wines and spirits<\/b> is not acceptable as these are regarded as<\/span> \u2018sin goods\u2019 <\/b>and the states which derive huge revenue from liquor sales would be reluctant to cut taxes.<\/span><\/p>\n

    4)Indians do not want foreign lawyers and accountants to practice in India. There is already a <\/span>shortage of jobs.<\/b><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    What India wants?<\/b><\/p>\n

    1)Being considered <\/span>\u2018data secure\u2019<\/b> is crucial for a number of services especially in the IT and ITES sectors.<\/span><\/p>\n

    2)Free access to European Markets for the<\/span> textile industry<\/b><\/p>\n

    3)Bilateral Investment Settlement Dispute Mechanism in which only after all options for settling disputed between a sovereign government and a corporate in <\/span>domestic courts have been exhausted <\/b>do we want to allow the issue to be taken up in international courts.<\/span><\/p>\n

    4)Liberalisation of services in <\/span>Mode 1 (cross-border trade) <\/b>and \u00a0<\/span>Mode 4 (presence and movement of natural persons)<\/b><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Advantages of BTIA, if concluded:<\/b><\/p>\n

    1)<\/span>Greater market access<\/b> to Indian Goods and Services abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n

    2)<\/span>Investment<\/b> by EU countries in India.<\/span><\/p>\n

    3)Liberalisation of Mode 4 would <\/span>reduce discrimination against Indians with respect to visa fees.<\/b><\/p>\n

    4)<\/span>Greater export earnings<\/b> and hence <\/span>Forex reserves<\/b><\/p>\n

    5)Improve <\/span>GDP<\/b><\/p>\n

    6)Exposure to <\/span>international markets.<\/b><\/p>\n

    7)Access to <\/span>technology<\/b><\/p>\n

    8)Better <\/span>quality<\/b> products.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Way forward:<\/b><\/p>\n

    1)After <\/span>Brexit,<\/b> it could be easier for India to negotiate the terms of FTA with EU.<\/span><\/p>\n

    2)Negotiations with <\/span>individual countries.<\/b><\/p>\n

    3)The <\/span>Global GDP and the GDP of several European countries<\/b> are recovering, this would be the right time to move the negotiations forward.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Context: Bilateral Trade Investment Agreement (BTIA) to be discussed amongst others during the bilateral meeting with Swedish Prime Minister and while co-hosting the first India-Nordic Summit.   Background:India and the EU have failed to pick up negotiations on the BTIA since they broke down in 2013.   What is BTIA? Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement… Continue reading INDIA-EU Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":4218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/india-eu.jpg?fit=1000%2C500&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700779437,"cached_date":1703089750},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}