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NEW DELHI : The European Union and India pledged Friday to push ahead with attempts to conclude a free-trade agreement next year but said much hard work needed to be done to break logjams holding up a deal.
The EU has been seeking to include global warming, intellectual property rights and child-labour policies in the stalled negotiations but India has opposed the incorporation of what it calls "extraneous" non-trade issues.
"We have expressed the hope the negotiations can be completed in one year," Premier Manmohan Singh told reporters after the 10th India-European Union Summit in the Indian capital.
India and the 27-member EU, the South Asian nation's biggest trade partner, have missed earlier targets in wrapping up a free-trade deal on which talks began in 2007.
Both sides also discussed violence-wracked Afghanistan and Singh urged the international community to "stay the course" as US President Barack Obama weighs up whether to send more troops to the country.
"We are in this region and what happens in Afghanistan, what happens in Pakistan affects us intimately," Singh told a news conference after the talks with the EU, which was represented by Swedish Premier Fredrik Reinfeldt.
The EU and India set an ambitious target of more than doubling their bilateral trade to 200 billion dollars in the next four years if a free-trade deal is concluded.
Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma said he had expressed a "very clear" view to EU negotiators that there were other forums to deal with such contentious issues as climate change and child labour.
"Here we are talking about trade and investment," Sharma said after both sides traded opinions about global warming ahead of UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month.
Swedish Trade Minister Ewa Bjorling, who attended the summit, said "a lot of work needs to be done" to finalize a free-trade accord.
EU officials said substance could not be sacrificed for a quick conclusion and reducing carbon emissions was vital.
EU negotiators wanted to give people "greater opportunities for jobs, greater opportunities for business and to make sure everything we do supports our ambitions on the environment," EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said.
Sweden's Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, warned of the impact of climate change on India unless a new emissions pact is reached at Copenhagen.
India was already feeling the impact of rising global temperatures, which he said had resulted in scanty rain, sudden floods and melting glaciers.
"It will be worse" without a deal, he said.
The EU has committed to reducing its emissions of harmful greenhouse gases by 20 percent from 1990 levels and has said it could hike the target to 30 percent if an international agreement is reached in Copenhagen.
India has resisted binding emissions targets, while demanding financial aid and technology to help reduce its output of greenhouse gases.
"We recognise that climate change is a global phenomenon and all of us have an obligation to work together," Singh said.
"The question arises whether we can quantify the emission-reduction targets. We haven't reached that stage so far," he said.
- AFP /ls
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