{"id":461527,"date":"2025-09-29T22:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T22:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/461527\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T22:32:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T22:32:16","slug":"last-round-a-missed-opportunity-need-to-engage-in-earnest-for-fta-by-year-end-eu-envoy-india-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/461527\/","title":{"rendered":"Last round a missed opportunity, need to engage in earnest for FTA by year-end: EU envoy | India News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LastEU ambassador to India Herve Delphin The 13th round of India-EU negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) this month was a missed opportunity, but the EU remains committed to concluding a \u201cmeaningful package\u201d by the end of this year, EU ambassador to India Herve Delphin has said. India and the EU will hold another round of FTA talks in Brussels on October 6, hoping to close several chapters that both sides could not in the last round here. Delphin\u2019s remarks confirm that there are lingering issues that both sides need to address to be able to meet the year-end deadline. EU trade commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, who visited India this month, had said that he expected more progress in the last round. Separately, Germany\u2019s ambassador to India Philipp Ackermann told TOI last week the 13th round was good but not good enough, while expressing confidence that India and the EU will get down to closing more chapters in the next round. Before the 13th round, only 12 of the 24 chapters, including SMEs, transparency, dispute settlement and customs and trade facilitation – had been closed.\u201cThe 13th round earlier in September was a bit of a missed opportunity to make some breakthrough. The EU was and is still ready to conclude on a meaningful package. We look forward to India engaging in earnest and moving, like the EU has shown readiness to do, towards a mutually beneficial deal,\u201d said Delphin, addressing an event that explored the way forward in India-EU relations against the backdrop of global disorder.Delphin said that the EU and India offer each other important strategic options to \u201cde-risk the economic turmoil and the security uncertainties, to tap into our complementarities and combine respective strengths and scale to serve each other\u2019s interests\u201d. The EU push towards strategic autonomy and India\u2019s own, as Delphin said, strategic conundrum in the form of challenges posed by the US, China and Russia have forced both sides to diversify their partnerships. However, India\u2019s energy ties with Russia, as EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said this month, remains an impediment to progress in India-EU ties. On its part, India wants EU to shun \u201cdouble standards\u201d on the issue of Russian oil, with the MEA reminding the EU last week of President Donald Trump\u2019s remarks urging Europe to not purchase Russian energy. Delphin said it is for India to consider how it can square its position on Russia, a strategic partner, with its support for peace and its desire to enhance ties with the EU. Apart from its energy ties with Russia, India\u2019s participation in the Russia-Belarus military exercise Zapad-2025 has also been met with disapproval in Europe. \u201cWe also have to be clear-eyed about those issues on which we are not aligned…there is a Russia question – specifically linked to its war of aggression against Ukraine and its hostile attitude towards as seen in past weeks and days and the violation of European air space by Russian drones,\u201d said Delphin. \u201cIndia has pronounced itself for peace. Russia is a strategic partner for India. And India wants to deepen its ties with the EU. This will require further consideration in Delhi on how to square those terms,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU ambassador to India Herve Delphin The 13th round of India-EU negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1500,154526,2000,154527,299,5187,1699,154523,10818,730,10816,10817,20239,70282,154524,5685,154525],"class_list":{"0":"post-461527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-delphin","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-eu-india-relations","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-fta-negotiations","16":"tag-google-news","17":"tag-india","18":"tag-india-news","19":"tag-india-news-today","20":"tag-india-eu-fta","21":"tag-mea","22":"tag-russia-india-ties","23":"tag-today-news","24":"tag-toi"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115289964732015948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}