# EU-India Trade Agreement: The Unspoken Terms of a Deal
**Date de l'événement :** 06/02/2026
* Publié le 06/02/2026

### Date
06/02/2026

## Chapô
**Hailed as a historic agreement, the trade and security treaty signed in January 2026 between the European Union and India marks a strategic turning point in the face of Donald Trump’s aggressive protectionism. However, behind this political posture dictated by urgency lie heavy compromises on environmental standards and an awkward silence regarding Russian-Indian military ties. Is this deal truly tenable? Christophe Jaffrelot, Research Director at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, deciphers in this article the unspoken terms and blind spots of a pact designed to counter American hegemony.**

## Corps du texte
The agreements that the European Union and India have just concluded on the occasion of the visit of Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa to New Delhi were presented by the heads of state and government as decisive advances, even turning points. The president of the European Commission even christened the trade agreement signed by both parties on January 27 as "the mother of all deals".

Such emphasis is explained by the need for both the Union and India to demonstrate to Donald Trump, who imposed record tariffs on them last year, that there are alternatives to the "American friend" who has just betrayed them. It is precisely to send this signal that both parties accelerated the movement and wrapped up a negotiation just in time to coincide with the Commission President's invitation to India's national holiday on January 26—the famous "Republic Day".

Beyond its commercial nature, the texts signed this week respond to a very political logic. While it is thanks to American pressure that they were able to see the light of day in time, this also explains their incompleteness—as a certain number of troublesome subjects had to be left aside.

_“The Mother of All Deals”: The Structure of an Unprecedented Trade Agreement_
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The scale of the trade agreement signed by the Union and India is primarily unprecedented due to the number of potential consumers concerned: in total, these two entities account for 2 billion inhabitants. Furthermore, the planned tariff reductions cover more than 90% of the goods and services that India and EU member states exchange today.

That being said, the agreement must be examined in detail—at this stage, however, based solely on official communiqués from Brussels and New Delhi, as the texts have not been made public—to gauge the extent of the advances in question.

In the automotive sector, tariffs on European cars are set to drop from 110% to 10%. This reduction will only occur over the next 5 to 10 years, and European exports cannot exceed 250,000 vehicles per year. In aviation, average tariffs of 11% are expected to disappear completely.

The situation is comparable regarding machine tools and electrical equipment, as the agreement provides for the elimination of tariffs—which averaged 44%—within 10 years. This timeframe is identical, but the scale of the reduction is half as much for European steel and chemical products, which previously bore average tariffs of 22%. Similarly, exports of wines and spirits, which India taxed at an average rate of 150%, should benefit from a drop in tariffs to 75% within 10 years and to 40% thereafter.

India, for its part, will fully benefit from the reduction, and then the elimination, of tariffs on its exports of leather products, textiles (a key sector of its economy), toys, jewelry, seafood products, tea, coffee, spices, etc.

Beyond the exchange of goods, this agreement gives a significant place to services, which are booming for both partners. On one side, Europeans will have easier access to Indian IT and financial services. On the other, India will be able to leverage one of its strengths in the European market by selling its IT solutions, for which a certain freedom of movement will be granted to competent personnel.

At a time when Europe is tending to close itself to immigration, this is an Indian victory, the extent of which remains to be clarified, as the model ultimately adopted by the Union could well be that of "guest workers"—a German invention now applied in Hungary under which foreign employees are called to return to their country after a few years.

The list of advances—objectively impressive compared to the blocking points that caused negotiations to collapse in 2013—nevertheless shows some limits linked to the volume concerned (the quota of 250,000 cars seems quite modest, for example) and the delays of 5 to 10 years. Beyond the success, it is therefore important to delve into the blind spots of the arrangement.

_Data, Environment, Labor: The Liabilities of the Agreement_
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Most agricultural products (cereals, dairy products, etc.) have been excluded from this partnership, likely to protect Indian and European farmers from mutual competition.

More surprisingly, however, the personal data flows that accompany exchanges in the services and e-commerce sectors are not covered by this agreement, doubtless due to the too-weak protection on the Indian side, whereas the Union has set high protection standards with the GDPR. Guarantees concerning intellectual property—though a central concern for Europeans—did not give rise to detailed explanations either.

Similarly, the consideration of environmental and social norms, which have been highlighted by the Union for years, is only the subject of recommendations in these agreements. In this regard, two concessions seem to have been made by European negotiators despite the Green Deal and positions defended in the European Parliament by the left and ecologists:

*   One concerns the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism implemented since the beginning of the year.
    
*   The other refers to the non-recognition by New Delhi of International Labour Organization (ILO) rules to which the Union subscribes.
    

Access to Indian public procurement markets is also passed over in silence by both parties, even though this is a repeated demand of the European Commission in its defense of European companies. Even more astonishing, the "investment" component is conspicuous by its absence, whereas originally, the negotiators were tasked with finalizing a treaty covering trade and investments; the legal protection of the latter appearing as a determining factor for deepening the economic integration of the two partners and prosperity, constantly presented as the ultimate goal of any free trade agreement.

Official communiqués from Brussels and New Delhi specify that, as with other subjects, new discussions will take place. One can see this as another sign that time ran out for the two parties, who wanted to reach an agreement at all costs during the visit of Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa to reply to Donald Trump's predatory policy.

_The Indo-Pacific: The Grand Context of a Strategic Deal_
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A clearer indication of the political nature of the agreements signed in New Delhi lies in the defense and security pact concluded in the wake of the trade agreement. While such an agreement was not initially on the agenda, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, announced it a few days before traveling to India alongside Ursula von der Leyen.

The terms of this understanding have not yet been made public either, but the main points of application are known: maritime security, cybersecurity, space, non-proliferation, and the fight against terrorism. By committing to these themes, the Union is responding to some of New Delhi's expectations, which, while valuing the European pole of the multipolar world India wishes for, regretted that security did not occupy a larger place within it.

The Union positions itself here in niches complementary to those—more military—held by member states like France. Indeed, India and the Union align in these areas due to the imperative need for both entities to resist China and the United States or even to emancipate themselves from their dependence on these countries. This had already led them to partner in the field of semiconductors to diversify their supply chain.

But the Union and India could also work together more closely in traditional security domains like information sharing. The Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region, installed in Gurgaon for pooling intelligence concerning this geographic zone, already counts certain European countries like France and Italy among its partners. The Union could potentially be associated with it as such.

Recently, India has also become a key partner for the Union in the Indo-Pacific region from the perspective of Maritime Domain Awareness, which allowed for the sharing of information, and even intelligence. Given not only the resurgence of piracy but also China's growing presence in the Indian Ocean, the Union and India had good reasons to unite their forces in this area, notably within the framework of the CRIMARIO program. This was made possible thanks to the IORIS platform, "a maritime coordination and incident management tool for the region, associated with in-depth training programs on maritime data processing".

The Indo-Pacific, regarding which the Union adopted a roadmap five years ago, and the project for an economic corridor between India and the Mediterranean can be two preferred terrains for operationalizing this kind of collaboration.

_The Bear in the Room: Putin Between India and the Union_

Beyond these partnership subjects, can Brussels and New Delhi truly converge on a geopolitical level? One might doubt it primarily due to the embarrassing place Russia holds in their relationship. While Vladimir Putin has become the number one enemy for most EU countries, he remains one of the closest partners of the Modi government, as evidenced by his official visit to New Delhi last year.

Two subjects appear particularly problematic for Europeans.

First, the Ukrainian question remains central. Not only has India not condemned the large-scale invasion of the country by Russia and continues to abstain at the UN when questions related to this war are debated, but it has also become one of the top customers of the Russian economy regarding oil. For years, Indian companies have refined Russian oil for the European market. Today, EU countries want these same companies to stop importing this crude to deprive Moscow of a significant financial windfall and force Putin to accept peace talks. On this point, Brussels and Washington are on the same wavelength, but Trump went further than the Union by sanctioning India through the imposition of additional 25% tariffs on Indian imports. For now, pressure exerted by the West has not had a significant impact: in 2024-2025, India imported $63.84 billion of Russian oil.

Secondly, Europeans are worried about military cooperation between India and Russia. Not only does Russia remain India's primary source of foreign weapons, but some of this equipment is very sophisticated, such as the S-400s, and others are jointly produced, such as BrahMos missiles. In July 2025, Reuters also revealed that an Indian company, Ideal Detonators, was supplying explosive components to the Russian company Promsintez, working for the army.

New Delhi and Moscow are not content with just manufacturing weapons together: they renewed their defense cooperation program and signed a Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement (RELOS), which concretizes their strategic partnership. This collaboration translated in practice into the joint military exercises of Vostok in 2022 and the joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise Zapad in September 2025, in which, besides India, Iran, Niger, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Congo, and Mali also participated.

Behind the grand signing of a historic agreement, Russia was indeed, backstage, the elephant in the room. The unease had already been raised days earlier: during their meeting in Delhi last week, Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar publicly declared to his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski that "Poland should show zero tolerance towards terrorism and not contribute to fueling terrorist infrastructure in our neighborhood"—an indirect reference to the Polish minister's visit to Pakistan. The latter replied that India and Poland were "on the same page" regarding terrorism, but while New Delhi worried about his visit to Pakistan, he disapproved of India participating in the Zapad exercise: "We all have regional concerns and we all have neighbors. We also have our grounds for concern. India participated in the Zapad exercises in Russia, which we consider a threat".

This incident reveals the sensitivity of the issue. In the near future, relations between India and the Union could become more problematic if the war in Ukraine continues to have the devastating effects known for nearly four years. Undoubtedly, the announced rapprochement with Delhi would arouse growing anxiety in the countries to the north and east of the Union.

_India Put to the Test of Parliament: Internal Geopolitics of the Trade Agreement_
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All in all, while the trade agreement signed by the Union and India responded to a political logic—which explains its unfinished nature due to lack of time—the security pact also sends a geopolitical signal to the rest of the world while raising fundamental questions: for it to pave the way for a genuine convergence of the two entities in this field, Brussels and New Delhi will undoubtedly have to lift the Russian liability.

However, it is a safe bet that this subject will take center stage and noisily slip into debates at the European Parliament when it comes time to ratify the trade agreement. It should not be ruled out, moreover, that MEPs will worry about the little space reserved for environmental and social considerations as well as human rights.

It is indeed in Strasbourg that this question was most discussed in Europe during Narendra Modi's visits in 2021 and 2023. Parliamentarians had then voted on resolutions denouncing the rise of authoritarianism in the Indian government, which affects the independence of the judiciary as much as the freedom of the press and the fate of minorities: in Modi's India, Christians and Muslims alike are victims of violence and discrimination.

This was not discussed either during the visit of Ursula von der Leyen, who continues to present India as a democracy. Ultimately, the Delhi turning point may lie here: it marks one more step in the Union's conversion into a "realist" actor, a middle power searching for partners in the face of Trump's United States. But to avoid the latter having the last word, Brussels and New Delhi will indeed have to quickly clarify all the points of their agreements still in suspense and have them ratified by their parliaments—an operation that could happen later in the year, or not.

**Licence :** `#CC-BY-ND (Attribution, Pas de modification)` 

### Thématique
`#Géopolitique` `#Europe` 

**Langue :** `#Anglais` 



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