After a two-year lull when both sides went into election mode, there are clear signs that India and the European Union are moving towards the resumption of talks on a Free Trade Agreement. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström has written to her counterpart to explore the prospects of getting back around the table. Indian Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman says New Delhi is ready to talk. Both sides are making conciliatory noises on tricky issues like IT services, pharmaceuticals, insurance and booze.

Stakes are high. The EU is India’s biggest trading partner, and two-way commerce is valued at around €93 billion. With a combined market of 1.8 billion people, India and the EU would form one of the world’s biggest free trade zones. This month’s visit to Germany and France by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an opportunity to take things forward – even though he’s dropped Brussels from the agenda of his European tour.

Is the time now ripe for negotiations to resume? Will opening up trade bring the benefits promised by negotiators on both sides? Or are critics right when they claim workers, small farmers, local traders and healthcare patients will all lose out in a free trade deal designed to benefit big business?

Contributor PJ likes the FTA idea and wrote asking about the chances of striking a deal during the term of the current EU Commission. We put his question to EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström to find out where things stand.

With Europe’s economy struggling to avoid stagnation, wouldn’t India be better off focusing efforts on improving trade ties with China and other faster growing powers? We put that question to Suhail Nathani, a trade expert and founding partner of the Economic Laws Practice based in Mumbai.

The we asked the same question to Michael Siebert, Germany’s Consul General to India. Does he think India should put trade negotiations with Europe on halt for now and better focus on relations with China?

One does not exclude the other I would say. Of course India must be interested in China economically, but why shouldn’t it be interested in dealing with Europe? Europe is in the end its first and foremost trading partner and its main investor. So Europe is very interesting for India, also as a partner for technology and technology transfer. In the end you must ask Indian companies and industries and government whether they are interested. Maybe I can give a small example – the trade exports from India to the EU are around 40 billion USD a year. That is very substantial, that is much more than other countries. A Free Trade Agreement would cause a 5% increase in these 40 billion. This would be two billion USD of extra exports to the EU per year. That is one third or even more of India’s whole trade with Japan – just to put it into scale… I’m sure India is interested.

What do you think? Will a free trade deal inject new life into Europe’s struggling economies? Can India afford to stand on the sidelines as negotiations for trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific free trade deals rewrite the rules of world commerce? Will a deal leave Indian businesses at the mercy of multinationals? How will an FTA affect European standards on labour rights, food safety or environment protection? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below, and we’ll take them to policy-makers and experts for their reactions.