India and EU announce landmark trade deal

Canada is embarking on a trade agreement with India and collectively our greatest fear is the immigration issue. Canada's immigration is already quite lop-sided.

The mobility discussion is interesting to me as someone who navigated US immigration.

Moving countries is hard. Not just paperwork hard, but restarting-your-life hard. Credit history, professional networks, understanding how things actually work versus how they officially work.

If the mobility framework makes it meaningfully easier for skilled workers to move between India and Europe, that's significant. Not because of labor economics, but because talented people having more options is generally good for everyone.

The H1B system in the US has created a lot of anxiety and frustration. Competition for that talent pool seems healthy.

Switzerland has a free trade deal with India already and has a huge trade surplus (~25B). Free trade with china too and also a big trade surplus of around $20B.

This is excellent, the duopoly discussions of the world mostly center around US and China and EU feels increasingly excluded while the rest of the world appears as footnote for good or bad reasons. I do hope this means there is enough dynamism in global trade.

The current challenge is that China has so much industrial overcapacity that it possibly can sell goods at near , sometimes even below mfg costs which makes it difficult if not impossible for India or other country made goods to even think of competing in the middle part of the value chain. Yet, it is the only hope for India to climb at least slightly even if they can never hope to get to the frontier of mfg. Chinese goals now are to amortize their existing mfg investments in any way possible but they still find it difficult to spur domestic consumption

I’m surprised, so it seems like most tariffs are falling towards zero on all products except agriculture and cars below 17,000$ in the coming few years.

Especially cars, India has had insane tariffs on luxury cars and motorcycles that will disappear, which is interesting. On the face this seems like a good deal for India as India can probably export much more than EU can to India except for a few sectors like Automobiles and Chips, but who knows, I assume EU officials seem to think the gains in a few high tech sectors are enough to offset the cheap goods on all other sectors.

It's insane to me that BBC now has a paywall.

Way to fall-off from being the one source of news everyone in "Anglo" countries in the Third-World used to turn to (and love and respect... however biased the news may have been).

Edit: am trying to access from US, I see a paywall. Good to hear from comments that other countries don't see a paywall.

I am pleasantly surprised.

I always thought of Brussels as the city where decisions go to die; that the EU discusses everything, poses for pictures and solves nothing. Then, in less than a month we have the trade deal EU-Mercosur and this one with India.

Maybe the Europeans can actually solve problems, after all.

This will strengthen relationship and stabilize the economy a lot in the face of Trumps tariff shenanigans.

Reuters has the draft terms - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/details-eu-india-trade-d.... Mobility is not mentioned.

You know it's a good deal for the EU and India given that China has been attempting a diplomacy blitz against the deal [0] for [1] years [2] now [3].

Indian DefenseTech and Dual Use technologies vendors can also now participate in ReArm Europe [4] as part of the India-EU Defense Pact [5] that was also signed, especially after the French Government identified [6] a Chinese-led disinformation operation against French and Indian DefenseTech which the DGSE reported on with AP [7].

---

Edit: Notice how even on HN new accounts are suddenly popping up trying to make a wedge about this deal by dog whistling immigration even though mobility is not mentioned in the draft seen by Reuters and is a power that falls under individual state's sovereignity in the EU.

---

Edit 2: Note the subsequent whataboutism that has arisen. A nation trying to conduct disinformation ops against another nation is an offensive action. It's the tip of the iceberg of attempts of foreign interference within France [8]

---

Edit 3: Replying here

> I still don't know what 'diplomacy blitz' are you talking about.

The GT is the de facto voice of China's foreign policy, and has consistently viewed the EU-India deal as an attempt to isolate China. Additonally, Table Media (Germany's equivalent of Axios) noted He Lifeng's statements against the EU-India deal dueing Davos 2026, as the EU and India are investigating a compromise on CBAM for Indian exports.

---

[0] - https://table.media/china/thema-des-tages/indien-weshalb-chi...

[1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1222983.shtml

[2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1222993.shtml

[3] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202010/1205230.shtml

[4] - https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-eu-sign-security-defence...

[5] - https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/security-and-defence-eu-and-...

[6] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...

[7] - https://apnews.com/article/france-china-pakistan-india-defen...

[8] - https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2024/07/02/deux-espio...

> Delhi and Brussels have also agreed on a mobility framework that eases restrictions for professionals to travel between India and the EU in the short term.

That should hopefully help increasing the much needed immigration.