A third round of negotiations took place earlier this month.
The two sides have also discussed a self-certification system for goods origin clauses, people with knowledge of the deliberations told ET. A fourth round of talks is scheduled for him in March 2023.
An official said, “Some text-based talks have begun, but they are tentative talks.”
The EU also proposed free capital movement to liberalize investment and other transactions.
Issues related to source code and tariffs were also addressed in the Digital Trade chapter.
Fulfilling the pledge on digital trade marks a permanent change in India’s trade policy stance on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization, experts said, aside from affecting India’s security. “China and the US are the main threats to India’s digital space, but giving the EU concessions means giving concessions to everyone.” said Perminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director of IT for Change. “The EU wants free cross-border data flow and full disclosure of government data and uses such data for the benefit of India’s sovereignty over Indian data and the benefit of Indian SMEs and start-ups. It challenges the policy space to
India has so far refrained from international commitments on digital trade to protect the policy space for designing future national digital sector policies, including digital industrialization.
The debate comes as New Delhi tightens its data protection laws. The Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill of 2022 removed provisions on localization, social media, hardware, and non-personal data and introduced new concepts such as data transfers to trusted locations.
The EU has expressed concern over tire import restrictions imposed by India through standards, sources said. A chapter on good regulatory practices was also discussed.
