On February 5, 2021 1st High-Level Dialogue(HLD) on India-European Union(EU) Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) 2021 Held virtually. It was co-chaired by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry and Valdis Dombrovskis, EU Executive Vice-President & Trade Commissioner.
Background
This dialogue has been established as an outcome of the 15th India-EU Leader’s Summit held in July 2020, which aims to provide ministerial-level guidance on bilateral trade and investment relations.
Highlights of 1st HLD on India-EU BTIA:
Meet within next 3 months
The Ministers agreed to meet within the next three months to sign agreement for many bilateral trade & investment cooperation issues namely:
- A bilateral Regulatory Dialogue
- An India-EU Multilateral Dialogue to explore further possibilities of cooperation, etc.,
Deepen Trade & Investment Relations
The Ministers also agreed to further deepen the bilateral trade and investment relationship through a series of regular engagements aimed to provide deliverables for the businesses in COVID-19 times.
Note– India-EU commercial and economic partnership was renewed.
Relations between India and EU
The relations between India and EU are currently defined by the 1994 EU-India Cooperation Agreement.
Recent Related News:
On January 19, 2021, the 1st India-EU IPR dialogue 2021 was held virtually between European Union (EU) Commission and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) to discuss key Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues affecting businesses.
Ministry of Commerce and Industry:
Union Minister– Piyush Goyal(Constituency- Rajya Sabha, Maharashtra)
Minister of State-Hardeep Singh Puri(Constituency- Uttar Pradesh), Som Parkash(Constituency- Hoshiarpur, Punjab)
About European Union (EU):
Headquarters– Brussels, Belgium
European Parliament president – David-Maria Sassoli, Italy(Term: July 2019 – December 2021)
Member Countries– 27(The United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union on 31 January 2020)
