After nearly two decades of on-and-off negotiations, the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement is finally nearing the finish line, with the EU’s ambassador to India, Herve Delphin, indicating the deal could be signed by the end of this year and come into force in early 2027.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, the ambassador said both sides are “on a good track” to complete the remaining legal vetting and technical annexes, including contentious details around water management, before the agreement is formally inked.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s packed year-end calendar, which includes the G20 summit, could affect exact timing, the ambassador said both leaderships are looking for a moment to mark the occasion “in style”, echoing the symbolism of the EU’s chief guest appearance at India’s Republic Day celebrations.
Asked why a deal that has been negotiated on and off for 19 years was finally crossing the line now, the ambassador pushed back on the idea that global tariff turmoil forced India and the EU together.
He described the current round as “FTA 2.0”, calling it a fresh process that began in 2022 at a virtual summit during the pandemic, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and PM Modi agreed negotiations needed to be relaunched. That decision, he said, came from a deeper strategic calculation about shared interests, not a reactive scramble triggered by Washington’s trade policies.
This is where the question of trust enters the conversation. The ambassador argued that India and the EU have increasingly come to see each other as natural partners precisely because of complementary economies and a shared belief in a rules-based global order at a time when both regions have weathered successive shocks, from COVID and the Gulf War to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly transactional, America-first US administration. In that environment, he said, the EU and India offer each other “stability, predictability, and scale”, qualities that matter more when other partnerships look less dependable.
He pointed to hard numbers as evidence India is becoming a trusted long-term partner rather than just a market: 6,000 European companies are already operating and investing in the country, contributing roughly 6 per cent of India’s export value. European firms, he said, are eager to expand further, viewing India not merely as a place to sell goods but as a manufacturing base, particularly as companies look to diversify supply chains away from over-reliance on China.
An investment protection agreement under negotiation alongside the FTA, he noted, is part of building that long-term confidence.
The ambassador also stressed that the FTA should not be seen as the total of the India-EU relationship but rather “the big tree in a big forest”, the most visible element of a much broader strategic partnership covering connectivity, security and technology cooperation.
Still, he acknowledged the trade pact carries outsized symbolic weight, since “this symbol and coming together in substance reflect the trust that is really at the core of our relationship.”
With legal scrubbing underway and political will evident on both sides, officials are now eyeing a signing ceremony before 2026 closes, potentially with Modi travelling to Brussels, setting the stage for the EU-India FTA to take effect in early 2027.
