India, EU ramp up push for ‘historic’ free-trade deal amid US tariff tensions

South China Morning PostCenter-RightEN 2 min read 100% complete by Biman MukherjiJanuary 22, 2026 at 11:45 AM

AI Summary

short article 2 min

India and the European Union are accelerating efforts to finalize a long-delayed free-trade agreement. EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa will attend India's Republic Day celebrations on January 26, followed by an EU-India summit on January 27. Discussions with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other officials are planned. Both sides are signaling urgency, driven by geopolitical pressures including US trade uncertainty and the realignment of EU supply chains. Negotiations, ongoing since 2007, have been hampered by disagreements over market access and labor mobility, but the current global environment has added new impetus to reach an agreement.

Key Entities & Roles

Key Player Opposition Context

Indic Researchers 30% World Economic Forum 40% Srinivaasan Balakrishnan 40% Subrahmanyam Jaishankar 50% Republic Day ×350% Antonio Costa ×260% Narendra Modi 60% United States ×270% Ursula von der Leyen ×380% India ×690% European Union ×490%

Keywords

free-trade agreement 100% india 90% european union 90% us tariffs 70% eu-india summit 60% global order 60% trade negotiations 60% supply chains 50% market access 50%

Sentiment Analysis

Positive

Score: 0.40

Source Transparency

Source

South China Morning Post

Political Lean

Center-Right (0.50)

Far LeftCenterFar Right

Classification Confidence

90%

Geographic Perspective

India

This article was automatically classified using rule-based analysis. The political bias score ranges from -1 (far left) to +1 (far right).

Topic Connections

Explore how the topics in this article connect to other news stories

No topic relationship data available yet. This graph will appear once topic relationships have been computed.

free-trade agreement india european union us tariffs eu-india summit global order trade negotiations supply chains market access

Explore Full Topic Graph