EU to strengthen ties with India via talks

European Commission Vice President Joaquin Almunia who is participating in the '3rd BRICS International Competition Conference (ICC)' here, said the EU looks forward to engaging India in bilateral talks and enhancing cooperation in resolving competition issues.

"We are interested in having bilateral conversations also with Indian authorities. I will meet this morning Deputy Chairman of India's Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and also the Minister for trade. Yesterday I had an opportunity to be in the inaugural session of the conference by Ministry for Corporate Affairs and we will try to better understand each other through these bilateral meetings and not directly in charge of the negotiations taking place right now both at the bilateral level and at the multilateral one with the Indian authorities," said Almunia.

India and the European Union had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday to increase cooperation between the European Commission's competition department and the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

The MoU constructs a dedicated framework to further strengthen cooperation in the area of competition law enforcement and provides for enhancement of an effective, transparent and non-discriminatory enforcement of such laws.

Almunia also said that it is the first time in the series of conferences that the European Commissioner is participating directly in a conference with colleagues from the BRICS competition authority.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had inaugurated the '3rd BRICS International Competition Conference (ICC)' here on Thursday

The two-day conference is being organized by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on behalf of BRICS countries in pursuance of the Beijing Consensus, New Delhi Declaration and Action Plan adopted at Fourth BRICS Leaders Summit in New Delhi on March 29, 2012.

The theme of the conference is "Competition Enforcement in BRICS Countries: Issues and Challenges".

The conference is organized biennially by one of the BRICS competition authorities on behalf of all the BRICS competition authorities.