Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed India’s concerns to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about banning of over 700 drugs two months back and has urged Chancellor to use her influence in EU to remove the barriers for resumption of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks with the 28-member bloc.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said 'we would go forward with negotiations' though there was an issue of India’s pharmaceutical exports getting affected. He further said 'It was our hope that this matter would be looked at fairly and sensibly and hopefully would not be an impediment to the FTA'.
Earlier in August India had deferred scheduled talks on the proposed pact later this month which was to resume after a gap of two years after the EU imposed a ban on around 700 generic drugs which were clinically tested by India's GVK Biosciences on the ground of inaccuracy in data.
The FTA talks are stuck on the issues relating to intellectual property rights (IPR), data security for IT services and tariff in the automobile sector. The last talks on FTA were held in May 2013. The EU has been maintaining that it was ready to show flexibility on all major issues that have stalled the talks as the FTA will be a 'win-win deal' for both the sides. Besides, EU was also looking at various sectors such as insurance, banking and retail for economic engagement with India. Meanwhile, India is asking to grant data secure nation status by European Union.