MSF warns on EU/India trade talks

As reported in Indian media, senior officials from the European Commission and India are expected to meet today in Brussels to hold talks on resuming negotiations on the proposed European Union-India free trade agreement.

The international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned that India must resist European Union pressure to include harmful provisions on intellectual property that could restrict access to medicines for people in developing countries.

EU-India free trade agreement (FTA) talks began in 2007 and have largely stalled since 2013 because of several contentious issues including intellectual property rights. These include provisions that could restrict the production, sale and export of affordable life-saving medicines made in India, upon which millions of people in developing countries rely.