Bathinda: Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) strongly criticised the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA) 2026, signed on Jan 27, and stated the agreement is not a fair trade deal but an economic colonisation blueprint that will lead to systematic corporate capture of the vast Indian market, decimate domestic agriculture and industry, and ruin employment opportunities in India.The Union govt agreed to completely eliminate import duty on olive oil, margarine and other vegetable oils, fruit juices and non-alcoholic beer, processed food (breads, pastries, biscuits, pasta, chocolate, pet food), sheep meat, and reduced import duty on wine from 150% to 20% and 30%, spirits from 150% to 40%, beer from 110% to 50%, kiwis and pears from 33% to 10%, and sausages and other meat preparations from 110% to 50%. Though the agriculture sector is not as open as claimed by the govt, the opening of the processed food market will have a larger and disastrous impact on domestic agricultural production and small farmers, SKM said in a release on Friday.The govt succumbed to the pressure of the EU to maintain its complex, expensive sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) barriers to block agricultural exports from India, such as grapes and mangoes, while using the FTA to dilute India’s own standards to ease the entry of their produce. This double standard protects EU farmers while exposing our fields and consumers to unfair and unsafe competition. The stringent rejection of grape, apple, mango and other producers will be repeatedly continued even after this deal. Admission to such a system is betrayal of farmers’ interests, it stated.The EU leaders proudly state this FTA provides its biggest trade opening India ever gave. For agriculture, this means the floodgates will open for €4 billion per year of subsidised EU dairy, processed foods, wines, and spirits. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provides massive, distorting subsidies that our farmers can never match. The elimination of tariffs on 96.6% of EU goods will lead to an avalanche of cheap imports, influence international prices of agricultural products leading to crashing domestic prices, and replicate the disasters seen with pulses and edible oils. This is not competition; it is economic warfare against India’s smallholder farmers, it stated.The FTA’s high-level Intellectual Property protection is a Trojan horse for European seeds and agro-chemical monopolies. It aims to impose TRIPS-plus provisions on seeds and plant varieties, criminalising our ancient rights to save, exchange, and reuse seeds. Furthermore, by extending pharmaceutical patents and enforcing data exclusivity, it seeks to gut India’s generic medicine industry, making healthcare unaffordable for millions. Through this deal, the union govt pushed corporate profits above people’s lives and farmers’ rights. This agenda also reflected in the proposed seed bill 2025 of the NDA Govt.The agreement also includes the complete elimination of import duty on machinery and electrical equipment, aircraft and spacecraft, optical, medical and surgical equipment, plastics, pharmaceuticals, iron and steel, and chemicals, along with reducing the tariff on motor vehicles from 110% to just 10%. This will create a disastrous impact. This is a complete surrender and will lead to deindustrialisation and the devastation of MSMEs, creating huge unemployment. This agreement, negotiated in secrecy and under corporate pressure, is a profound betrayal of India’s national interest, designed to sacrifice the livelihoods of India’s agricultural majority at the altar of European corporate profit and deindustrialisation, thus a blueprint for economic colonisation. The data from the EU’s own factsheets, touting “unmatched market access,” reveals the shocking scale of the surrender made by the NDA Govt, SKM stated.As per the EU leadership, the India-EU FTA will be final only after ratified by each of the Parliaments of European countries and the EU Parliament, taking a period of 1 year. Though Mr Modi claims India is the “Mother of Democracy”, the Indian Parliament not discussing the agreement that will have long-term impact on the people and economy is ridiculous. SKM demands the Prime Minister put forward every negotiation document about the India-EU deal in the public domain and make it answerable through debate in Parliament.SKM will continue to mobilise farmers and join hands with workers to intensify its campaign for the general strike on February 12 against the corporate legislations, policies and the India-EU FTA.
