The webinar is held in English

India has strong potential for European companies, but entering the market and doing business there still comes with practical challenges.

With around 1.4 billion people, a rapidly expanding consuming class, and a deep engineering and services base, India offers significant opportunities for European SMEs. At the same time, tariffs, standards, state-level variation, and enforcement uncertainty can make market entry complex. The new EU–India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is set to change part of that equation. But what will it actually mean for your business?

Join us on 20 October for the webinar, organied in collaboration with Enterprise Europe Brussels, India IP SME Helpdesk,and Global Business Inroads (GBI).

This session explains what the agreement will and will not do for a European SME and helps you build the protective and commercial groundwork of an India internationalisation strategy before preferences take effect.

India-EU trade: the numbers

• €120 billion in goods trade between the EU and India in 2024
• €59.7 billion in services trade in 2023, up from €30.4 billion in 2020
• India is the EU’s ninth largest trading partner, while the EU is India’s largest
• The FTA eliminates or reduces tariffs on 96,6% of EU exports to India
• The European Commission estimates around €4 billion a year in duty savings on European products

(Source: European Commission)

Where does the FTA stand?

Negotiations concluded on 27 January 2026, after nearly twenty years. Talks began in 2007, stalled, and were relaunched in 2022, with separate tracks for an Investment Protection Agreement and a Geographical Indications agreement.

The agreement is not yet in force: the trade chapters still require Council approval and European Parliament consent, while India ratifies by executive Cabinet decision. Entry into force is generally expected in early 2027.

What will you learn?

• Understand what the EU–India FTA covers and where it currently stands
• Assess whether and how the FTA changes your commercial case for India - identifying the sectors, products and cost lines where preferential access makes a material difference, and where it does not
• Choose an entry route with its consequences in view — comparing distributor, joint venture, subsidiary and licensing models against control, cost, and exposure of technology and brand
• Build a sequenced action plan for the pre-entry-into-force window - knowing which protective steps to take first, roughly what they cost, and which EU and Indian support resources to use
• Identify the intangible assets that carry their value into the Indian market - trade marks, designs, patents, trade secrets and know-how - and recognise the disclosure and filing points at which those assets are most often lost

Programme

14:00–14:10     Welcome. Ekaterina Clifford, Beci

14:10–14:30     Mise en contexte : l’Inde et l’ALE. Aperçu du marché ; comprendre l’ALE UE–Inde - quoi, pourquoi et comment. Leena Thomas, GBI

14:30–14:50     Protecting and Leveraging Intangible Assets in India. Girish Somawarpet Nagraj, India IP SME Helpdesk

14:50–15:00     Q&A, key takeaways, and where to get further support

Speakers

Leena Pishe Thomas - Global Business Inroads

Leena Thomas has over 25 years of experience in international business, technology and project management across the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Brazil and Africa. She founded Global Business Inroads (GBI) in 2009 to support technology companies, governments, investors and other organisations with market access, international business and technology deployment across India and global markets. GBI has helped bring solutions addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals into new markets and supported the identification and deployment of innovative technologies to address global challenges.

innovative technologies to address global challenges. Leena has extensive experience in EU–India technology and market cooperation. She has co-authored Successful Innovation Systems, together with authors from 12 global innovation hubs and cities and is a regular speaker at European Commission and United Nations events on trade, technology, innovation, market access and investment.

Girish Somawarpet Nagraj - India IP SME Helpdesk

Girish started his career as a software engineer at Infosys Technologies Ltd - India, working in the domain of communication networks and voice over internet telephony (VOIP) and gradually moved into the domain of intellectual property. He has been involved in patent research in the fields of ICT and AI technologies for over 5 years, with varied institutional, academic and industry experiences. Girish has been pursuing his research in IP and has been working in the University of Alicante (India IP SME Helpdesk), advising and assisting EU SMEs with their internationalisation to India.

Participation

• Language: English
• Platform: Zoom. You will receive the link in the confirmation email. (Check your spam folder)
• Registration is mandatory
• Free thanks to Enterprise Europe Network
  
  

Photo of Mumbai by Harsh Khandelwal on Unsplash