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by IANS |
New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar on Sunday will embark on his visit to Belgium, where he will be attending the European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs Council and bilateral meetings with EU leadership and Belgian counterparts, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
The EAM will be in Brussels till March 16. He was invited by the EU High Representative and Vice President Kaja Kallas.
Timed soon after the 16th India-EU Summit, according to the MEA, the EAM's visit aims to deepen the Strategic Partnership, building on recent discussions.
During the visit, EAM will also hold meetings with the leadership of the European Union and his counterparts from Belgium and other EU Member States.
India-EU relations have reached a historic high in 2026, evolving from a long-standing strategic partnership into a deeply integrated economic and geopolitical alignment. The two entities are strengthening ties across trade, security, technology, sustainability, and global issues.
India's trade negotiations with the EU culminated in a landmark Free Trade Agreement (FTA), often described as the "mother of all deals" due to its massive scale -- creating a preferential trade zone covering nearly 2 billion people and roughly a quarter of global GDP.
Negotiations for the India-EU FTA originally began in 2007 but were suspended in 2013. They were relaunched in 2022 and accelerated significantly in late 2025, with the final rounds concluding successfully.
The negotiations wrapped up on January 27, during the 16th India-EU Summit in New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and others hailed it as a historic milestone.
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