Emphasising that India and the European Union have “the largest and most vibrant free market space in the world,” India and Austria on Wednesday discussed India-EU relations and said the long-pending EU free trade agreement must be expedited.
Noting that deeper EU-India ties will be mutually beneficial and also have a positive global impact, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reaffirmed their strong support for the early implementation of the ongoing India-EU Trade and Investment Dialogue and the EU-India Connectivity Partnership.
Prime Minister Modi made a two-day official visit to Austria at the invitation of Chancellor Nehammer. This was the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Austria in 41 years, and also marks the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“The issues that both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister focused on included India-EU relations. As you know, the EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been under negotiation for 23 years,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said at a press conference here on Prime Minister Modi’s visit.
“Prime Minister Modi and the Austrian Chancellor agreed that discussions have dragged on for too long and they also agreed that this is a subject that both India and Austria should try to move forward at a faster pace,” Mr Kwatra said.
“They also talked, of course, about the range of opportunities in both the economic and political spheres,” he said. “They were talking about the India-EU partnership and also how India-Austria relations play a synergistic role in the overall India-EU relationship,” he said.
The EU is India’s third largest trading partner, with goods trade worth 88 billion euros in 2021, accounting for 10.8 per cent of total Indian trade. India is the EU’s 10th largest trading partner, accounting for 2.1 per cent of the EU’s total goods trade. According to data available on the EU website, services trade between the EU and India reached 30.4 billion euros in 2020.
The India-Austria joint statement at the end of the official state visit said the two leaders emphasised that India and the EU have the largest and most vibrant free market space in the world, and noted that deeper EU-India ties would be mutually beneficial and also have a positive global impact.
It said, “Chancellor Nehammer and Prime Minister Modi agreed to support various initiatives to bring India and the EU closer. In this context, they reaffirmed their strong support for the early implementation of the India-EU Trade and Investment Dialogue and the EU-India Connectivity Partnership.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
