Context: Recently, India and the European Union (EU) are set to agree on a high-level dialogue on trade and investment to restart negotiations, seven years after talks on a free trade agreement were suspended.
Key Points

• Tackling COVID-19 and its impact on the economy and the global order will be high on the agenda. 
• The medical developments on testing vaccines and treating the coronavirus will be discussed along with the withdrawal of the U.S. from multilateral organisations (like the World Health Organisation). The ‘assertive’ nature of  China will be on the agenda too. 
• India and the E.U. are expected to conclude several agreements including a roadmap for cooperation, an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation and launch a maritime security dialogue as well as negotiations between Europol and the CBI.
• There will be a  trade and investment dialogue, which is expected to give a kickstart to negotiations on the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) as the EU-India FTA is known, which have failed to be resumed despite several commitments by the leaders, including at the last E.U.-India summit in 2017.
• Both sides are expected to officially adopt the ‘EU-India Strategic Partnership: A Roadmap to 2025’, which will seek to enhance strategic and security ties between both sides.

Reservations of EU

• It stated that there is a trend in India that goes towards the protectionist side. The Make in India programme was accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis and recent pronouncements that India wants to go ‘Self-reliant’, didn’t help the situation. 
• Bilateral trade with India formed under 3% of the E.U.’s global trade, which is “far below” what was expected of the relationship. 
• It stated that India maintains a quiet protectionist stance when it comes to offering us tariff relaxations.”
• It has reservations about the model “Bilateral Investment Treaty” (BIT) that India has proposed, especially on dispute mechanisms in Indian courts. 

Deadlock in Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA)

• India and the European Union continue to struggle to conclude a bilateral Free Trade Agreement even a decade after the negotiations were first launched in 2007.
• The BTIA negotiations have remained deadlocked over growing differences regarding greater market access sought by both sides for merchandise exports.

What is BTIA?

• In  2007, India and the EU began negotiations on a broad-based Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA). 
• These negotiations are in consonance with the commitment made by leaders of both sides at the 7th India-EU Summit held in 2006 to move towards negotiations for a broad-based trade and investment agreement on the basis of the report of India-EU High-Level Technical Group.
• Through its implementation, India and the EU expect to promote bilateral trade by removing barriers to trade in goods and services and investment across all sectors of the economy. 

About the European Union

• It is a group of 27 countries that operate as a cohesive economic and political block. 
• It was formed in 1993 and came into force after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty by 28 countries. 
• Its objectives are to increase political cooperation, to enhance economic integration by creating a single currency the EURO, unified security and foreign policy, common citizenship Rights, enhanced cooperation in the areas of judiciary, immigration and asylum.
• 19 of these countries use the EURO as their official currency. 8 EU members (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden) do not use the euro. 
• It was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2012.
• Until 2020, no member state had ever withdrawn or been suspended from the EU, though some dependent territories or semi-autonomous areas had previously left. The UK government invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union on 29 March 2017 to formally initiate the Brexit process. Completion occurred on 31 January 2020 (at 23:00 London time),[2] with all other arrangements remaining in place during a transition period while a free trade agreement is negotiated. Therefore, the total countries comes to 27 from 28 earlier.