The European Union has the “political will” to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement with India, according to Jon Simonsson, Senior Director at the Prime Minister’s Office in Sweden.
“There’s very strong political momentum now in the EU to come forward and really get FTA in place (with India), and with those, I think developments go faster again,” Simonsson said on the sidelines of the Carnegie Global Technology Summit.
“There are a lot of commonalities between the EU interests and in Indian interests. I really think we could collaborate more in this area, and the political will is there as well. So to do something here is an evident thing to do,” he said.
India-European Union (EU) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations were formally re-launched on June 17, 2022, following the India-EU Leaders announcement in Porto on May 8, 2021.
Negotiations cover 23 policy areas/chapters. Several rounds of negotiations have been held by far.
Further, speaking about India and how it can leverage AI, the Swedish official said India has an excellent knowledge base of startups, engineers, and technical universities.
“It’s very much a matter of providing the right conditions for this group of people to do their job, to innovate, to test out new things…and I think one of the benefits of China has been that this very strong notion of culture of learning and developing new stuff. India also has that, but we have to make it easier for students and entrepreneurs to go this way and do things,” he added.
He said financing such technology is also key.
“Of course, financing is also a very important tool to get that type of experimentation in place, but now with 100 plus unicorns based in India, of course there are entrepreneurs now that could give back to society and invest in new startups that do exactly what others have been doing. So I think you (India) have a good opportunity now to use and cultivate your ecosystem, which is growing very rapidly,” the Swedish official added.
