4 min readNew DelhiJan 17, 2026 06:32 AM IST
First published on: Jan 17, 2026 at 05:30 AM IST
Describing the upcoming India-EU trade agreement as the “mother of all trade deals”, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said none of the 27 European Union (EU) members are opposed to it.
The deal, which is expected to be signed on January 26, will be “comprehensive” in nature and will take care of interests and sensitivities on both sides.
“None of the EU states, in various high-level meetings, has opposed the trade agreement with India. The deal would be the mother of all deals, most comprehensive and mutually advantageous for both parties involved,” Goyal told reporters here.
An official said, “New Delhi has got a good deal in sectors that we are interested in, and we have also given the EU a good deal in the sectors they are interested in. India and the EU are not in competition as we share complementarities, which makes the partnership win-win.”
To a question on differences between India and the EU over the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), the official said that national interest has been taken care of during the negotiations and that includes the interests of farmers.
In June 2025, The Indian Express reported that India was also working on a “new chapter” aimed at extending long-term regulatory certainty in the domestic manufacturing sector to attract investment from the EU. New Delhi has been working on the chapter to decide where India will allow 100 per cent FDI.
The conditions, such as ‘local employment’, ‘local value addition’, and ‘use of local raw materials’, were also being negotiated. India had allowed 100 per cent FDI in telecom for the UK under the trade deal. In the insurance sector, the FDI ceiling was kept at 74 per cent, providing investment certainty for UK insurers. A similar strategy was followed in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) deal.
Investments have been a key feature in trade deals with Western trade partners. In exchange for lowering tariffs, India has been seeking investment commitments. India and the four-nation EFTA – an intergovernmental grouping comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland – signed a trade pact in March 2024, under which EFTA countries have committed to invest $100 billion in India over 15 years. New Zealand has also committed $20 billion in investments.
The India-EU trade agreement has been decades in the making. Both have finally come close to signing the agreement after talks were relaunched in July 2022. Negotiations were abandoned in 2013 after it was launched first in 2007.
However, the talks seem to have gathered urgency after the Trump administration drastically changed its trade policies, ramping up protectionist measures, forcing trade partners to explore newer markets.
India is aiming to gain market access in labour-intensive sectors such as textiles, footwear, gems and jewellery and the EU is expected to get market access for its automobiles and beverages.
A key driver of the trade deal has also been the shared challenge of China. Indian industry has been encountering pricing challenges, especially while trying to scale up the solar energy sector. The EU is concerned about China’s dominance in critical technologies since China holds a leading global manufacturing position in several areas, exposing the EU to potential risks.
Breaking away from the trade deal signed earlier, the NDA government has had a Look West trade policy that entailed signing trade agreements with developed countries where traders from both countries were not competing in similar sectors. While the US trade deal continues to be stuck, India has sealed trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Union Minister Piyush Goyal at an event to mark a decade of Startup India in New Delhi, Friday. (PTI) 
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