First Trade and Tech Council meet begins between India and EU

The first meeting of the India-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Brussels marks a significant milestone in the strategic partnership between India and the European Union due to its focus on critical domains, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said.

The meeting, co-chaired on the Indian side by the EAM, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, and Communications, Electronics and IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, covered key focus areas of strategic technologies, digital governance, and green energy technologies.

The EAM highlighted that India has a crucial role to play in all aspects and also with regard to its impact on the global talent pool.

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The TTC was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, during her visit to India in April last year.

It led to the creation of three Working Groups under the TTC: Working Group on Strategic Technologies, Digital Governance and Digital Connectivity; Working Group on Green and Clean Energy Technologies; and Working Group on Trade, Investment and Resilient Value Chains.

"This first meeting of the Trade and Technology Council is a significant milestone in the strategic partnership between India and the European Union," Jaishankar said in his address.

"We are obviously important partners for each other but what the TTC represents is a focus on key domains that are critical to both the global economy and global security. Today the challenge is to address simultaneously the dual requirements of responsible growth and de-risking the global economy. This means promoting resilient and reliable supply chains and additional drivers of global production and growth," he said.

The minister stressed the importance of ensuring trust and transparency in the digital domain, including cross-border flows, which would involve embracing low-carbon growth while ensuring that this did not create critical vulnerabilities.

"In each of the focus areas of the TTC strategic technologies, digital governance and connectivity, clean and green energy technologies, and resilient value chains, India has experiences to share in terms of innovation, production, and deployment. We are also an important factor in regard to the global talent pool that has been discussed this morning," he noted.