o India had unilaterally terminated BITs with most EU members in 2017, asking them to renegotiate the treaty based on a new model BIT passed by the Cabinet in December 2015.

o The Indian Model BIT requires a foreign investor to litigate in national courts for at least five years before approaching an international tribunal.

o On the other hand, the ISDS provision in EU-Singapore FTA (2013), the gives investors a choice between bringing a dispute against a host state before the national court of the country where the investment has been made and submitting the dispute to international arbitration.

o Rejecting a proposal by EU to suspend such termination, India proposed a toned- down version of the BTIA, which would include an investment chapter and avoid contentious issues for the time being.

o However, the EU didn’t agree. The issue came up for discussion again during the meeting of the two chief trade negotiators.

♤ At the 14th India-EU Summit in Delhi in October 2017, both sides resolved to restart negotiations for BTIA.

♤ After months of deadlock, India and the European Union (EU) chief trade negotiators met in New Delhi in November 2017 to hammer out a way forward for the long-pending free trade agreement negotiations between the two sides. It is not the resumption of BTIA negotiations, but to find a way forward to resume negotiations.

2.6.1. The India-Meeting on BTIA Talks: Recent Developments

♤ On 15 November 2017, senior officials of India and European Union (EU) held discussions on the long-stalled free trade pact and expressed willingness to address issues in a time- bound manner.

♤ The negotiations for the pact have been held up since May 2013 as both the sides are yet to bridge substantial gaps on crucial issues such as: