'India, EU should hold talks only after substantial progress'

Asserting that automobiles and wines continue to be the sticking points in the long-stalled negotiations for the proposed FTA with India, the EU today said the two sides should restart talks only after they have "something meaningful" to deliberate upon.
"We cannot allow ourselves to go back to the negotiating table and not being able to bring some real progress into this process. So it is better if necessary to keep on preparing on a more backstage level so that when we sit in front of each other, we have something meaningful to deliver," Daniel Rosario, Spokesperson Trade, Directorate-General Communication -European Commission, told visiting Indian journalists here.

He said it does not make sense to raise expectations if both the sides are not able to deliver.
Both the sides needs to ensure that when they sit together, "we have something to move ahead," he said.
Asked about Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's letter to EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom seeking from her dates for chief negotiators to meet, Rosario said, "we are preparing the answer".
"For the EU and the European Commission, India is and remains an important partner and also when it comes to the trade policy we were engaged for a long period of time with India in negotiations for a free trade agreement but unfortunately the process came to a standstill a few years ago and since 2013 there was no further movement in this process," he added.

At the India-EU Summit in March, for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Brussels, both sides failed to make the much-awaited announcement on resumption of long stalled negotiations for a free trade agreement as many bottlenecks still remain.

Asked which sectors were the sticking points for the EU in the negotiations, Rosario pointed out that it was mainly the
car and car parts and the wine and spirits sector.
Expressing disappointment and concern over the EU banning sale of around 700 pharma products clinically tested by GVK Biosciences, India had deferred the talks with the 28-member bloc in August last year.

On the issue, he said India's decision to defer the talks was "not justified".
"For us this (the ban) was a step that was not really justified back at the time and we explained it why. But that is something that we will need to sort out during this process but we cannot simply ignore all the work that has been done so far," he added.
He said the GVK decision "has nothing to do with the negotiations of the trade agreement".
"It never had a link it, doesn't have a link. It was a decision taken by the EU regulators on its own merits and the decision we respect and we don't see any link whatsoever with the negotiation of the trade agreement.