Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-27-Speech-3-274"
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"en.20060927.21.3-274"2
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"Mr President, thank you for your comments, from which it is clear that we all attach great importance to comprehensive relations between the Union and India.
Only last week, on 19 September 2006, the EU-India High Level Trade Group finalised its report to the 13 October 2006 EU-India Summit and concluded that an expanded trade partnership should be developed through the negotiation of a broad-based trade and investment agreement. This forms the basis for the High Level Trade Group's recommendation to the EU-India Summit. It augurs well for an agreement at the summit that there is a strong case for launching bilateral FTA negotiations and that the parties are ready to take the necessary steps to start negotiations.
The areas forming the basis of bilateral EU-India relations, as covered by the three EU-India Subcommittee meetings, range from economic policy, dialogue and cooperation, including on industrial policy, science and technology, finance and monetary affairs, the environment, clean development and climate change, energy cooperation, information and communication technologies, civil aviation, maritime transport, space technology, agriculture and marine policy, customs, employment and social policy, business cooperation and development cooperation, to trade and investment and the bringing together of peoples and cultures. Many of those areas will no doubt form the subject of discussions at the EU-India Business Summit on 12 October 2006 and the Political Summit on 13 October 2006, with a view to making progress in all areas of EU-India relations.
It is in our mutual interest to build on a rich history of experience and partnership with India. The issue of the free trade agreement with India presents us with a number of possibilities. An agreement with India would present various advantages, such as the consolidation of the European Union's privileged position in an important and growing market. India is the only major emerging economy with the European Union as both its largest trading partner and its largest investor. Whilst there have been sizeable reforms, access to India's market is still very restricted, with applied tariffs in certain sectors at over 30% and many caps on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the services sector. The reduction of tariffs for EU companies and the liberalisation of trade in services would secure access to a rapidly growing market and thereby contribute to competitiveness.
A secondary benefit would be to lock in India's economic reforms to the advantage of its and the region's long-term economic growth. The visibility and economic benefits of an FTA with the European Union would support India's programme of reforms and provide a more stable investment climate.
The Doha development agenda does not preclude bilateral free trade agreements, and the conclusion of such free trade agreements does not and would not prejudice the completion of the Doha development agenda. The European Union and India remain committed to the rules-based multilateral trading system. The successful outcome of the DDA multilateral trade negotiations remains their foremost trade-policy priority. India and the Union will continue to collaborate closely on mutual interests and to play leading roles regarding the DDA.
In the speech which Commissioner Mandelson delivered in Berlin on 18 September 2006, he indicated that the central strand of the October trade policy review would argue that the EU should seek to build on and complement its commitment to the multilateral trading system with a new generation of bilateral free trade agreements with key growing markets.
While Europe continues to be highly competitive in global export markets, European companies are losing ground in the highest technology products and the fastest growing markets. In rapidly growing regions such as Asia, the European Union is underperforming. There is now a case for new bilateral free trade agreements designed to deliver more open markets. FTAs can build on WTO multilateral liberalisation by addressing areas, such as trade and services, public procurement and competition policy, that are not yet fully addressed by WTO rules. In this respect, the deepening of EU-India bilateral trade relations supports the larger multilateral trading regime.
Finally, as many of you have said during the discussion, strengthening EU-India relations represents a great hope: that of reducing the wealth gap existing in that country, of improving the conditions for workers and ensuring better standards of protection for all workers, in particular for women and children, and of improving the quality of life of the Indian people in general which, as has rightly been pointed out, is still such that 190 million people live on less than USD 1 a day."@en1
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