Secretly, India talked free trade agreement with EU again

India hosted trade officials from the European Union last week (January 25-29) for the eighth round of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations in the capital, and apprehensions are high about the speed, secrecy and lack of transparency in the manner in which they took place.

Last year, New Delhi sealed FTAs with South Korea and the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) in a closely-guarded fashion, without any parliamentary debate or consultations or talks with state governments.

“Like the deals with Asean and South Korea, the texts and content of the deal with the EU are being kept secret. Both India and the EU seem very eager to conclude the deal by end of 2010. There is absolutely no word on how India’s concerns on intellectual property (IP), tariffs on agriculture, second-hand goods, etc, would get addressed,” said a source closely associated with the government.

Repeated attempts to get in touch with the joint secretary and additional secretary from the union ministry of commerce and industry, who are part of the negotiations, failed.

S Ganesan, chairman of the international treaties expert committee, FTAs with India are initiated by “others with India”, rather than India with others. “India does not lead from the front and the EU is known for hegemony,” Ganesan said.

Experts say the EU wants the total elimination of customs duty on several agricultural products. This could have a severe impact on India’s farming community, as according to OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) data, agriculture support given by EU in 2008 is €102.9 billion.

Said Ganesan: “The EU wants us to reduce tariffs on olive oil. In 2010, we are likely to import 25,000 metric tonnes of olive oil. The EU doesn’t

import our coconut oil. Moreover, our fruits exported to the EU come under scrutiny for chemical residue. But India does not scrutinise imports from EU like olive oil for residues. It’s all lopsided at the moment.”

Furthermore, the EU is pushing for India to join the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants-1991, which would turn Indian farmers pawns in the hands of EU multinationals engaged in crop research, and crush farmers’ privileges of sharing, exchanging, selling seeds to other farmers.

The EU is also pressing India to incorporate two provisions — patent extensions and grant of data exclusivity that would delay early entry of low cost generic drugs.

“The EU wants India to extend the patent monopoly by five more years, to the current 20. Both this and data exclusivity go beyond the Trips agreement of the World Trade Organisation,” said a New Delhi-based IP expert.