Piyush Goyal to make final push for India-EU discussions in new year

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will travel to Brussels early January to give a final push to the trade talks between India and the European Union (EU) and resolve pending contentious issues such as carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), steel, and automobiles, according to a person aware of the matter. 

“The minister will be in the EU during January 8-9,” the person cited above said. 

Both sides had aimed to finalise the deal by the end of the year. However, talks are now set to roll over to the next year, with a fresh attempt to seal the deal by January 26 – during the visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to New Delhi as the Republic Day chief guest. 

Government officials said that India and the EU are continuing to engage with each other to narrow the differences and close the free trade agreement (FTA) talks at the earliest. CBAM — which will impact several Indian exports to the EU from January 1, 2026 — steel, and automobiles continue to remain contentious issues. 

Earlier this week, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal had said the negotiations between India and the trade bloc have entered the “most difficult” stage. “We are in the most difficult stage, most difficult issues are on the table... we are trying to ease that out wherever we are finding a fine balance. There is a set of issues on the table... CBAM is definitely on the table,” Agrawal had said. 

Since the beginning of the month, both sides held intense discussions with the aim of working towards concluding the long-pending agreement at the earliest. The 16th round of negotiation took place from December 3-9 in New Delhi. Goyal also held discussions with Maroš Šefčovič, EU commissioner for trade and economic security, during December 8-9 to provide strategic guidance to the FTA negotiating teams. Šefčovič’s visit was preceded by high-level discussions between Agrawal and director-general trade, European Commission, in New Delhi.