India-EU to negotiate trade

Helsinki, Oct 13 (UNI) Taking their strategic partnership to a new plane, India and the European Union (EU) today decided to immediately move towards negotiating a broad-based bilateral trade and investment agreement and reaffirmed their commitment to combat terrorism with full respect of their obligations under international law.

''The trade and investment agreement will cover 90 per cent of the tariff lines and trade volume,'' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said while addressing a press conference at the end of the 7th India-EU Summit here.

The EU side at the summit was represented by Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, in his capacity as President of the European Council, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana and European Commission President Jose Manuel Borroso, among others.

In a joint statement issued at the end of the summit, India and the 25-member EU said they attached high priority to energy security as a key to stable and sustainable development. ''Energy is an important area of ongoing and future policy dialogue and practical cooperation between the EU and India,'' the statement added.

However, there was no mention in the joint statement of the Indo-US deal for civlian nuclear energy cooperation.

During talks yesterday with Prime Minister Singh, the Finnish Prime Minister was non-committal on assuring the EU's support to the Indo-US deal.

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