Brussels — Official confirmation may still be pending, but diplomatic and media circles in Brussels are already treating it as virtually a done deal: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to travel to Brussels in December for high-level talks with EU leaders.
The visit would come at a pivotal moment in EU–India relations. At the heart of the summit would be the landmark free trade agreement between the European Union and India — a deal that has been described as the “mother of all deals” because of its scale and strategic significance.
The agreement has the potential to open up a market encompassing nearly two billion people and could reshape global trade and geopolitical alignments at a time of growing uncertainty surrounding both the United States and China.
The EU and India reached the conclusion of their long-running FTA negotiations at the 16th EU–India Summit in New Delhi on 27 January 2026. The talks had been launched and suspended several times over almost two decades before finally gaining momentum in recent years. The next stage is the completion of the legal review and ratification process before the agreement can formally enter into force.
The timing is hardly accidental. The international order is undergoing a profound transformation. Global supply chains have become increasingly vulnerable, while unpredictable shifts in US trade policy have forced both Brussels and New Delhi to rethink their economic strategies.
For the EU as well as India, diversification has become a strategic imperative. Both sides are seeking to broaden their economic partnerships and reduce excessive dependence on either China or the United States. The new trade agreement is therefore about far more than tariffs and market access: it is also a geopolitical statement.
Its economic significance is difficult to overstate. Together, the EU and India account for roughly a quarter of the world’s population, while bilateral trade in goods and services has already reached substantial levels. The agreement is intended to deepen economic integration, expand market access and strengthen supply-chain resilience between two of the world’s major economic powers.
Yet enthusiasm is not universal across Europe.
Some EU member states remain concerned about the distributional effects of the agreement. France, for example, has traditionally been wary that tariff reductions could disproportionately benefit Germany’s powerful machinery and automotive sectors. Italy, meanwhile, has expressed concerns that increased competition from lower-cost Indian suppliers could put pressure on its domestic component manufacturers.
Washington has its own reservations. US policymakers have argued that closer EU–India trade ties could make it easier for India to process and re-export Russian energy products to European markets, potentially weakening the impact of Western sanctions against Moscow.
For New Delhi, however, the agreement represents a major strategic victory. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already presented the deal as a historic milestone in India’s economic and diplomatic relations with Europe. The Indian government has emphasized that the agreement will create new opportunities for trade, investment, employment and technological cooperation.
The EU, for its part, views the agreement as one of its most ambitious trade deals to date. European Council President António Costa described the pact as historically important and stressed that, in an increasingly multipolar world, Europe and India have a shared interest in building new spheres of economic prosperity and strategic cooperation.
The real test, however, will come next.
The political announcement may have been historic, but the agreement must still pass through the necessary legal and ratification procedures before it can take full effect. In other words, the deal may have been concluded — but the final chapter has yet to be written.
