New Delhi, Nov. 2: India and the European Union are unlikely to meet the 2010 deadline set by the European parliament to ink the free trade pact as Brussels has linked human rights, climate change and labour issues to the agreement.

Indian negotiators feel this is a bid to browbeat India into agreeing to stricter emission norms in return for a trade deal.

The India-EU summit to be held on Friday is expected to give a decisive political push to negotiations over the long-deliberated, broad-based trade and investment pacts.

However, negotiators fear that unless India’s political leadership is able to get the EU to separate its agenda on climate change from trade, the talks may continue to drag.

Commerce ministry officials said India had taken a position to keep non-trade issues such as child labour, human rights violation and environment issues off the trade radar.

Analysts said the EU’s constant focus on these issues could derail the talks, and with the slow progress in talks, the deadline of 2010 seems almost not feasible.

“We cannot conclude the talks within a time frame… what is important is the outcome of the talks and not its conclusion within the deadline,” commerce minister Anand Sharma said.

The trade deal would provide a single united market for India in the 27 European nations. The European Union is India’s largest trading partner accounting for approximately 77 billion euros in trade in goods and services in 2008, whereas India is ranked tenth in the list of EU’s main trading partners. With its growing economic strength, India is expected to provide a major market for the EU.

The European parliament has expressed disappointment with the slow pace of negotiations, which started in June 2007, with members stating that they would like to see an agreement signed with India by the end of 2010.

They also adopted a report stating that the agreement should ensure that increasing bilateral trade brings benefits to the widest number of people, including dalits and adivasis, and contributes to India’s development goals, including the prevention of environmental degradation. It also stressed on the need to address the issue of child labour and labour rights.

The European parliament also called on India to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, even though the Nuclear Suppliers Group has lifted its embargo on India’s nuclear trade. Unless the European parliament clears the pact, the trade pact cannot come into force; so the report adopted by it is significant.

Commerce ministry officials said they were not in a position to negotiate anything other than trade- and investment-related matters, and the issues raised by the EU were sovereign issues and were non negotiable.

“The EU is raising non-trade issues to put more pressure on India to get what they want in other areas. This could derail the talks,” said Biswajit Dhar, director-general, Research and Information System on Developing Countries.

Since the India-EU deal negotiation started over two years back, seven negotiating rounds have been held, covering goods, services, investments, trade facilitation, public procurement, technical regulations, competition, intellectual property issues and other issues.

The eighth round may happen in January next year.