EU and Indian leaders will seek to push forward plans for a free trade zone, at a summit in New Delhi on Friday, and further boost a burgeoning relationship between the regional powers.
Also high on the agenda when European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates meet with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders will be the problems in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The 8th EU-India summit comes at a “symbolic time” according to an EU spokesman in Brussels, referring to the 60 years since Indian independence from Britain, 50 years since the EU’s founding Rome Treaty and 45 years since the start of bilateral diplomatic relations.
EU-India trade has come a long way since those political landmarks, and is currently running at one billion euros (1.5 billion dollars) a week.
European Commission delegation chief Daniele Smadja told a news conference in Delhi on Monday that it was seeking “fast” agreement on the free trade deal.
“We are negotiating a free trade agreement and negotiations are going very well. We hope during this summit to bring impetus to these negotiations,” added Portuguese ambassador Luis Filipe Castro Mendes.
EU foreign ministers gave the green light in April for the talks to start with India. But neither side was predicting when an agreement will be struck.
An Official at India’s Brussels embassy echoed that bilateral relations were strong “but have not reached their full potential”.
“We’d like a trade deal at this summit, or the next one, as soon as it is possible,” he said on Tuesday.