Almost twenty years in the making, the India-EU Free Trade (FTA) Agreement – touted as the ‘mother of all trade deals’ – is finally set to be announced on Tuesday at the India-EU Summit in New Delhi, with negotiations all wrapped up, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal has confirmed.

“The India-EU free trade negotiations are being concluded. The deal is to be announced tomorrow. The formal deal signing will be done after the legal scrubbing,” Agrawal said on Monday.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa, who were the chief guests at the Republic Day celebrations, will join Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday for the India-EU Summit, where a formal announcement of the conclusion of the trade pact is expected. 

Faced with the pressure of US President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff regime, both sides were driven by a mutual urgency to finalise the deal.

“The free trade pact will be a balanced and forward looking one for better economic integration with the EU. The deal will propel trade and investment between the two sides,” the Commerce Secretary said.

Indian exporters of labour-intensive items such as textiles, garments, leather, footwear, gems & jewellery, chemicals, toys and sports goods, facing much higher tariffs than the EU average of 3.8 per cent, are expected to make significant gains from the pact, industry sources had earlier shared.

Similarly, EU exporters of goods to India, especially from protected sectors such as wines & spirits and automobiles, are expected to gain greater market access, although subject to various caveats and restrictions, including quotas (for automobiles), the industry sources added.

The text of the FTA will be publicly shared after necessary cleaning in about two weeks time. 

The legal scrubbing could take about five-six months, following which the FTA will be officially signed, another source explained. “Both sides are hopeful that the FTA can enter into force early 2027 after getting their official clearances. The EU will need to get the FTA cleared by EU Parliament,” the source added.

The India-EU FTA has been projected by both sides as the `mother of all trade deals’, as it covers a total population of 1.9 billion, which is about a fourth of total world population, and a combined GDP of over a fifth of global GDP.

In the area of services, India is hopeful of making gains in terms of mobility.

While the India and EU are set to sign a separate MoU for a comprehensive mobility framework to facilitate the movement of students, skilled workers and researchers, provisions for higher number of student visas and post-study work visas are likely in the FTA, industry sources said.

Published on January 26, 2026