Kisan Sabha warns govt against EU FTA
The All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has cautioned the government against going ahead with the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement before debating the issue in Parliament.
The Kisan Sabha has called upon the peasantry and all sections of society to unite and force the Congress-led UPA government to withdraw from such Free Trade Agreements (FTA) that compromise the country’s interests.
Accusing the government of carrying out secret negotiations with the European Union, the AIKS leaders said it is all set to conclude the India-EU FTA by October 2010.
“The government has gone ahead with the negotiations unmindful of the widespread objections and protests across the country against the recently-concluded India-ASEAN FTA,” said AIKS president S. Ramachandran Pillai.
“Such agreements are bound to have far-reaching consequences for Indian agriculture and other sectors without following federal principles and the time-tested norms of parliamentary democracy,” he said.
According to AIKS leaders, the India-EU FTA envisages lowering of Indian tariffs to zero or near zero levels for 90 per cent of the agricultural products, while the huge agricultural subsidies enjoyed by the farmers in EU countries remain unaltered.
Also, the agricultural exports from EU will in no way become prohibitive as per the FTA.
The leaders maintained that the huge domestic subsidies to agriculture in the EU ensures that those countries can still continue to dump subsidised farm products in the Indian market.
“Indian farmers have been hit hard by the earlier FTAs. The plantation sector, oilseeds sector and fisheries have been facing their adverse implications,” said AIKS general secretary K. Varadha Rajan.
“Cheap imports of tea, coffee, spices, fish products and palm oil have led to drastic fall in domestic production and destruction of livelihoods. Farmers’ suicides have been high in regions growing some of these crops. The India-EU FTA is expected to flood the Indian markets with cheap dairy products,” he said.
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