EU tracking India-IAEA talks

NEW DELHI: The European Union is unlikely to take a common position on the India-US nuclear deal at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), leaving member countries to evolve their own positions.

However, days before the annual EU-India summit, the European commission’s envoy Danielle Smadja said the EU was following the India-IAEA negotiations closely. "The EU understands India’s interests in civil nuclear cooperation and its growing energy needs. The EU is following with interest the negotiations between India and the IAEA," Smadja said.

"The EU is committed to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime," she said when asked whether the EU would support the India-US civil nuclear deal.

"We are trying to evolve a common policy. We are a federation of sovereign states," Portuguese ambassador to India Luis Felipe Castro Mendes said. The summit, therefore, would focus on renewing the science and technology agreement with India, some energy projects in clean coal technologies and solar energy. EU and India, said Smadja, were also looking for a quicker free-trade agreement.

Bilateral trade now, she said, was running at 1.5 billion euros a week. The annual exchange of goods had reached 47 billion euros, with services at 10 billion euros. "We believe that a trade and investment agreement would boost in a remarkable way investments and trade. We are ready to go as fast as the both sides wish to."

Mendes said, "We are negotiating a free trade agreement and negotiations are going very well. We hope during this summit to bring impetus to these negotiations."

"Climate change will be high on the agenda," Smadja said. The summit, she added, was barely a week before the Bali conference on climate change. India and EU remain far apart on climate change — India has refused to commit to emissions targets, saying it needs more energy for development.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com