India and the EU are continuing to hammer out the details of a trade agreement less than 72 hours before European leaders arrive in India for the 16th EU-India Summit. The Summit, scheduled for January 27, is centred around a ‘Free Trade’ Agreement (FTA) that has been in the works for more than two decades and is proving difficult to negotiate with “sensitivities” around agriculture, carbon border taxes, service delivery and non-tariff barriers.
Other agreements on the agenda for next week are a new Defence and Security partnership, an agreement on information security and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a mobility framework.
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A joint statement will lay out a new strategic roadmap, outlined in the joint statement, setting the course of the India-EU partnership for the next five years. Deeper cooperation is expected to be announced across various dimensions, including climate change, supply chains and critical minerals, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as well as cooperation at multilateral forums.
Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal had confirmed on January 15 that “sensitive agricultural issues on both sides” were off the table. EU officials in Brussels, briefing the media on Friday, declined to provide details of the trade deal, including agricultural trade. They, however, did confirm that it would be announced – but not signed – next week.
“I can just confirm that it is our objective to complete the negotiations. Of course, that’s the first step. We’re not talking about signature in Delhi, but we’re talking about conclusion of the negotiations,” an EU official said on Friday (January 23, 2026). A recent deal between the EU and Mercosur countries of South America has run into trouble around agricultural and other concerns. The European Parliament on January 21 referred the deal to the highest EU court, potentially delaying the implementation of the agreement.
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Apart from trade, the fact that a Defence and Security agreement that would be signed next week is “significant”, another EU official said. “It is only the third such comprehensive agreement we’ve concluded in Asia, after Japan and the Republic of Korea.“
The agreement will establish a framework, rather than stipulating specifics in terms of co-production deals, joint military exercises or the transfer of technology.
Technology transfer
On whether the defence agreement would address technology transfer from the EU to India, one EU official said, “It does, but of course, it remains, even after the agreement, subject to the discretion of the companies and also of the countries allowing for these exports.”
The security partnership also raises the question of Russia – a core issue on which India and the EU have glaring differences. European officials have more recently acknowledged that New Delhi and Brussels have very different approaches to Russia even as the EU objected to India’s participation in the Zapad 2025 military exercises in Russia and Belarus, and has repeatedly taken issue with India’s oil trade with Russia. New Delhi has accused Brussels of singling it out in these matters and pointed to the EU’s own trade with Russia.
On Friday (January 23, 2026), officials acknowledged that India and the EU had different histories with Russia. India was “far away” geographically from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. A dialogue on security threats was therefore all the more important to understand the concerns of both sides so the “optimum” level of cooperation can be determined, an official said.
The sides are also planning to conclude a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on mobility that will address the movement of four categories of workers — highly skilled workers, students, researchers and seasonal workers — whose movement is already addressed by the blocs legislation. The number of individuals admitted to each EU country will be up to the country, an official said.
The two sides are committed to taking the India Middle East Europe Economic (IMEC) Corridor forward, one official said, with feasibility studies being planned. The project had been set back due to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
While India and the EU have been deepening and broadening their relationship for more than a decade now, the circumstances today have supported an acceleration in convergences — with both entities’ respective trading relationships with the U.S. under the Donald Trump administration in disarray.
Strategically as well, the EU has been reeling from the unravelling of the transatlantic relationship, including, most recently, the crisis over Mr. Trump’s demand for Greenland. The bloc has also been squeezed at other ends, with an almost four-year war between Russia and Ukraine and a relationship with China that it is seeking to de-risk. For India, faced with 50% tariffs from the U.S., a trade deal with the EU is important as one of its largest trade partners (bilateral trade in FY 2024/25 was just over $136 billion) and the EU is the largest trade partner of India for trade in goods.
Published – January 23, 2026 10:52 pm IST
