India-EU trade deal will lead to corporate capture of market, huge unemployment: Samyukt Kisan Morcha

New Delhi: The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Friday said the India-EU trade agreement is not a fair deal but an "economic colonisation blueprint" that will lead to systematic corporate capture of the Indian market.

In a statement, the SKM said the opening of the processed food market will have a disastrous impact on domestic agriculture production and small farmers.

"SKM strongly criticised the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA)... The agreement signed 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 SKM said.

The outfit said that the Indian government's complete waiver from import duty on olive oil, margarine and other vegetable oils, fruit juices and non-alcoholic beer, processed food, and sheep meat will adversely impact the farmers.

"Though the agriculture sector is not as open as claimed by the GOI, the opening of the processed food market will have a larger and disastrous impact on domestic agriculture production and small farmers," the SKM said.

It also took exception to reduction of import duty on wine from 150 per cent to 20 per cent and 30 per cent, spirits from 150 per cent to 40 per cent, beer from 110 per cent to 50 per cent, kiwis and pears from 33 per cent to 10 per cent, and sausages and other meat preparations from 110 per cent to 50 per cent.

An umbrella body of farmers' outfits, the SKM accused Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of succumbing to the pressure of the European Union to maintain its complex, expensive Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) barriers to block agricultural exports from India like 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 & other producers will be repeatedly continued even after this deal. Admission to such a system is betrayal of farmers' interests," the body that had led the 2020-21 farmers' protest said.

The deal means floodgates will open for a 4 billion-euro subsidised EU dairy, processed foods, wines, and spirits per year, it said.

The SKM stressed that the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provides massive, distorting subsidies that our farmers can never match.

"The elimination of tariffs on 96.6 per cent of EU goods will lead to an avalanche of cheap imports, influence international price of agricultural products leading to crashing domestic prices and replicating the disasters seen with pulses and edible oils. This is not competition; it is economic warfare against India's smallholder farmers," it said.

The FTA's "high level" Intellectual Property protection is a Trojan horse for European seed and agro-chemical monopolies, it warned.

The SKM said the EU aims to impose TRIPS-plus provisions on seeds and plant varieties, criminalising India's 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," it said.

"Through this deal the BJP Government has pushed corporate profits above people's lives and farmers' rights. This agenda has also been reflected in the proposed seed bill 2025 of the NDA Government," it added.

The SKM said the elimination of import duty on machinery and electrical equipment, aircraft and spacecraft, optical, medical and surgical equipment will lead to deindustrialisation and the devastation of MSMEs, creating huge unemployment.

The trade deal should be discussed by the Parliament, the outfit demanded.