FM Sitharaman hails India-EU trade deal at Munich Leaders Meeting

The India-European Union free trade deal stands out as an example of how India is negotiating and finalising trade deals, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday (October 5, 2026).

Speaking at the opening session of the Munich Leaders Meeting in New Delhi, Ms. Sitharaman noted that India has opened up 92.5% of all its tariff lines through the agreement and 97% of the trade value, while the EU has opened up 99% in terms of value and possibly 97% of tariff lines.

“With the size of the EU and Indian economies — the growing economy that is India, the growing middle class in India and its buying power — you have tied together two growing economies for the next 20-30 years,” she said.

Ultimately, you are tailoring the agreements to keep national interest alive, but also to survive in a very challenging global environment where no WTO-related laws are left to be respected, she added.

Trade deal with U.S.

On the proposed Indo-U.S. trade agreement, Ms. Sitharaman said, “It has been a hard and very rigorously negotiated agreement.”

“The negotiations are still ongoing, but we would like to believe that both sides have reached a plateau beyond which giving or taking might be very difficult,” she said, adding that the trade balance is in India’s favour.

“Naturally, the balance is unfavourable for the U.S., so they would want to reduce that imbalance, and they would desire to, as much as possible, make up for what they have lost over these years,” she said.

“From our side, in a way, and I am not comparing at all, but if that is the principle of trade imbalance, which has to be reduced for them to consider anything more, I would think that is the way the U.S. would look at China or India would look at China,” she said.

“The trade imbalance between India and China, for instance, has been growing exponentially since 2014. So when you are talking about trade imbalance being the sole criterion, to what extent beyond negotiation can you go? Negotiation used to be the only platform through which countries could highlight the discrepancies and lopsidedness,” she added.