Improving EU-India trade – Answer by Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis

(16.4.2021)

The Commission is aware of the issue of taxes and other measures on imported wines and alcoholic beverages at state level in India, and, with the support of the EU Delegation to India, is using all available channels, both formal and informal, to address these matters at all relevant levels of the Indian Government.

The Commission is notably raising the issue of taxes in annual meetings of the EU-India Trade Sub-Commission and of its relevant working groups, including in the meeting of the EU-India Joint Working Group for Agriculture and Marine products held on 9 December 2020. Moreover, India’s protectionist measures under the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Self-reliant India’ initiatives have also been raised, including in the High-Level Dialogue on Trade and Investment, which took place on 5 February 2021.

At multilateral level, the Commission has raised the tax issue in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Policy Review for India, which took place in January 2021. In the area of promotion measures concerning agricultural products, the work programme for 20211 provides a budgetary allocation for measures on the initiative of the Commission, which encompass the participation in major international trade fairs with Union pavilions dedicated to EU agricultural products.

The Commission has identified India as one of the countries where such a pavilion should be set up, provided the sanitary situation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic allows for such participation.

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1 Commission implementing decision C(2020) 8835 final of 16.12.2020, see annex I, point 1.3 for budgetary allocation for measures on the initiatives of the Commission.